Change of Plan

Tonight, I was going to blog more about our adventures in Berlin.  About why I love traveling to foreign countries so much—I realize that so much of the way we do thinks is pretty arbitrary.  And I like feeling a bit askew from having to do things differently (e.g., take a shower/bath, or a “bower” as we called it without hosing down the whole bathroom) or from just being different (like when the police scolded at us for jaywalking and we stared blankly because honestly, we didn’t understand a word of what he said besides “Kinder”).  So I had planned to blog about that.

But instead, today was my first full day back at work, and I’m still reeling a bit.  Yes, I’ve had the baby in daycare before.  And yes, I’ve been working Quite. A. Bit. here at home.  But, of course, that doesn’t count because no one can see me.  So even though I try to explain that I’ve been working at home to colleagues, it’s best just to agree that today is completely different and it’s hard.   

But it wasn’t.  Today wasn’t hard.  Tomorrow is going to be.  I’ve been used to working for the last two months just 3 days a week.  I have to do all this again tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the day after that.  And then after that.  But then I don’t because it will be Saturday.  But you get the drift. 

It’s kind of freaking me out.  I am SO LUCKY in some ways.  I have so much more freedom in my job.  But still, it’s a fulltime job with fulltime (or more) responsibilities. 

I’ll let you know what I learn.

Although one thing came back clearly to me this weekend.  The reason my graduate apts were always pigsties is because I was busy!  I put off a conference paper until after we returned from Berlin (it was due today).  And our house was a wreck because pretty much all I’ve done besides breastfeed is work on that paper from 6 am Friday morning until 10:30 am today.  And the house is frightening!  Grad school frightening!!  Dave helped out as he could, but he’s prepping a new class that started tonight. 

The little guy is asleep right now.  He has decided that he much prefers the boob.  They have a hard time getting him to take a bottle until he’s really hungry.  I think that’s another reason why he’s up at night.  He’s filling up his tank then so he can coast boobless throughout the day.

And, yes, the boob misses him, too.  Final Berlin story:  at the wedding, my friend kindly hired a babysitter for us.  We dropped him off at 3 pm and picked him up at 12 am.  He was in one of the hotel rooms.  As it had been a really long time since I’d gone 9 hours between feedings, the boobs were about to explode.  When we went to the room, I kicked off my shoes as soon as I entered and began to unzip my dress.  I had a boob out before I’d even reached the baby.  (The babysitter, being native German, didn’t seem to think twice about this behavior)  I apologized to my husband and told him that eventually, I would once again rip my clothes off for him, too, when we returned from a party.  But right now, our little man is my love monkey. 

6:59:21 PM