Return to work
So it's been two weeks since I've made the big "Return to work" and so far I'm surviving. I'm SOO glad that Hubby is watching Sweetpea and pumpkin now. It makes this infinitely easier to not have had to worry about them being in daycare and how they're reacting to a stranger until I've settled in. Work is mostly the "same old, same old" stuff. I do enjoy my job, at least the part I went to school for, the professional title (and not all the paper work that goes with it). They were courteous enough to not throw oodles of patients on my caseload for at least the first two weeks. I missed the kids I worked with and am glad to see they missed me and that some have made progress. I knew it would be a hair harder to work with the kids after having my own. It can be difficult to work in a profession where kids don't seem to get a fair shake at life for essentially no reason at all and it always makes me feel blessed for my children, yet at a loss for the ones I work with. So I'm just doing what I can do for them.One of the best parts now is how amazingly easy it is to move. I felt like I was floating in from the parking lot, so different from 6 months ago where I would be out of breath just walking from the parking lot to inside. It's so nice to be able to work with my patients and not have to be dragging something around to sit them down on. Unfortunately I entered the outside world and the land of germs. Everyone was sick everywhere I went (to school visits, the dentist office and, of course, kids and co-workers) and I knew I would wind up sick too (by the 4th day). So Sweetpea and Pumpkin picked it up too but did fairly well with just a bit of fussiness. They've already had two colds via germs from Hubby and they breezed through the first two with no symptoms at all, with me very mildly sick. So far the pumping/BF thing is continuing and another good thing is that I don't have to do one feeding by myself for the next five weeks unless Hubby is gone (OK so that already did happen, he had to spend an evening at work, oh well) - small joys. Right now the feeding schedule is 6:20 am, 10:00ish, 1:30, 4:30 and 7:00ish. It helps so much to have two people because we are still weighing them before and after to give them a bit of milk or formula since I don't make quite enough. I kept expecting to think of some new innovative way to get around this but there doesn't seem to be one. And helping me get them up on the pillows is a bonus. (No more fussy crying if I'm too slow). I'm not looking forward to hauling them home from daycare in time and getting them in the house and set up for the 4:30 feeding when they start daycare, since I'll be doing that by myself.
Overall, it is so much easier to be at work, which was a surprise because I was expecting to be exhausted and wasn't (at least until I got sick). Of course I haven't worked out "working out " into the equation yet. I took a nice 2 week hiatus from that so maybe that will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. It'll have to be after the kids are off to bed because I hate wasting my time when the kids are awake doing anything else but playing with them now. Being a parent of twins puts you on the ultimate time budget and even then there never seems to be enough to go around. I will have to write a post detailing a day at home in the first few weeks, the later weeks before I returned to work and my schedule now. If not for retaining my memory of it all but for proof to JT and Bri as to what really went on. And as well, maybe co-workers will understand why I can't just run off and join them for happy hour or why I'm volunteering to bring a Costco salad instead of cooking. Some things in life will have to wait till the little ones are not so little cause I'm not missing it for the world.
posted by Andrea @ 8:22 PM
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