I decided to ease myself back into this whole working thing and just showed up for a half day today. For some reason, my two youngest children decided that the two nights before mommy goes back to work would be a great time to start waking up every hour. Without exaggeration, I can confidently say that I have only slept in 30 minutes intervals the past two nights, and only for a grand total of three hours a night. So today was a little bit brutal.
I was going to bring Jon in and show him off (my boss keeps saying that I can bring him to work with me!), but he caught some terrible bug (Super Bowl hangover perhaps?). So at my mom's suggestion, I took Jake instead.
He had a great time drawing and playing Angry Birds and answering all the calls from opposing counsel:
One of my FB friends pointed out the baby wipes on my desk as a dead give-away that I am a mom. so true! I always keep baby wipes with me. They are amazing.
At one point I left Jacob in my office with instructions to stay there and play Legos while I sat down for a meeting with a Division Chief. Halfway through our meeting, he comes waltzing in with a handful of various snacks and goodies from my coworkers. "Mom, look at this can of ravioli that Mr. Matt gave me! He told me to call him the 'snack man.' And I found this piece of chocolate under a desk." I'm pretty sure he scrounged up all the free snacks in the entire office.
I'm being assigned a bunch of new cases regarding civil litigation defense and I am so so excited to get my hands on them. I LOVE analyzing case law, investigating the gambit of relevant facts, preparing liability assessments, strategizing plans for litigation, and drafting motions to carry out those plans. I feel like this is where I really shine. And it's my favorite thing in the world. Sometimes I feel so lucky that I have a job where I get paid to do stuff that I legitimately love. Not all tasks and projects are fun. But overall, I really love this little area of the law.
I only worked for half of a day but it was just the right amount for my first day back. I need to get used to sitting in front of a computer all day and focusing on just mental tasks. And dang, I'm really going to miss my indulgent daytime television (The Chew, The Talk, Let's Make A Deal, and the Ellen Show). But it's nice to join the land of the working. I get to sit down and actually enjoy a cup of tea. I get to eat lunch with BOTH hands. I get to have a conversion that is not broken off by a screaming baby. I don't have to share my snacks with little urchins. And I get to use my lawyer brain (you know, the one that cost me about half a mortgage).
Also, with my new permanent position, came this bright, shiny badge.
Seriously, this badge takes the cake! I didn't know lawyers got badges! If I had known this, I would have grumbled a lot less during law school (maybe?).
Returning home from work was amazing. I snuggled my poor, sick baby all evening and we somehow managed a 1.5 hour nap together without the big kids destroying too much of anything.
During my maternity leave, I couldn't wait to sneak out of the house. I was totally drained. So many diapers. So many tantrums. So many fussy, non-sleeping people. I was deep in the trenches and it felt like they would never end but just grow deeper and deeper. Being away for part of the day makes a huge difference. It really lets me see everything in the appropriate perspective. It lets me appreciate how short and fleeting the time with my babies is. I come home refreshed and ready to tackle the mommy parts of my day. I have so much more patience. I appreciate the shorter time I have with them. There is so much less yelling. As much as I love my children, nothing makes me a better mommy than going back to work. And I'll stand by this statement to my grave!
After the kids got ready for bed, we all sat at the table and played a game of chess. I can't even remember the last time I had the energy or the will to sit down and play a game with my kids:
Ryan and Mommy versus Jacob
So goodbye sweet-last-but-also-kinda-disappointing maternity leave and hello the rest of my career.
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