It's been a maternity...

Yesterday was my first day back at work after almost 14 months away. It was my first day at work as a mother, my first day at work since Swee'pea began his existence outside of my body, as his own little person, his own little person AWAY FROM ME.

(First off, leaving him was fine. I shed no tears. This, I am sure, is the result of two things: 1) I am so lucky as to have a workplace that was able to accommodate my wish to work only three days a week and 2) I LOVE LOVE LOVE my daycare provider... so much that I almost wonder if she's better for/with him than I am; so much that I didn't worry about him AT ALL. I have to buy her some flowers.)

It was weird being back at work after such an enormous change had been wrought not only in my life and lifestyle, but deep inside me, in the place where I make sense of the universe (as much as I can), but not much had really changed there. A few people had come and gone, but mostly it looks like the same work with different acronyms.

Settling down at my new desk with my new computer, putting up my calendar of Swee'pea and turning to the March page, finding a pen in the drawer... it made me feel very grown up. Calling the help desk when I couldn't log onto the computer, and having them press enter to solve the problem -- literally! -- put an end to that feeling.

Some other highlights of my First Day Back at Work:

• getting a new security badge. Apparently they just threw away the badge I handed in when I left for maternity leave. So I had to get a new picture. I'm used to having awful ID photos, but this one seriously takes the cake. Not only does the little camera not have its own light source, thus allowing the sickly green cast from the overhead flourescent bulb to colour the photo and make my hair look like I tried to bleach it blonde myself and it turned out green like in Anne of Green Gables, but somehow the camera put a big black gap between my two front teeth. Seriously. I think I will have to try to scan a copy of the image, it's just that bad. I checked to make sure I didn't have anything black stuck in my teeth, and I didn't. It's just magic, I guess.
• spending half an hour trying to track down the printer I printed to before calling the help desk (again) and finding out that the printer that was set up as the default printer on my computer is in fact unplugged and disconnected.
• getting used to dialing 9 before every outside call... I think I'll need a few days at that.
  
• trying to find a new source for better pens than the crappy ballpoints in the supply cabinet. No joy yet, but I'm sending out feelers in the workplace underworld. I may have to pony up and buy myself some of those nice gel/rollerball/fine tip pens that are SO much nicer to write with. I used to have a reliable supplier, but her stash is empty. I think she's gotten out of the illicit pen pushing business.
• A drawn out Office Space moment trying to find my old stapler. I'm pretty sure I put it in my box of stuff, but it wasn't in there anymore. I spent a fair amount of time asking around, Have you seen my stapler? I need my stapler. It was in my box, but now it's not... It was a good stapler: reliable, it had a nice smooth shape, it was a Swingline (the best brand of staplers IMHO). It may not have been shiny and chrome like my friend's, it wasn't red like in the movie, but it was a great stapler.
• I got a passionate welcome back from several of my coworkers, which actually unnerved me a bit. Especially when I heard the phrase, "Busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest."
• Apparently they don't turn off our email when we leave, so I had 14 months of emails to go through/delete. One of them shocked me that they have actually changed the daylight savings time. I mean, I'd heard rumours, but it seemed like something that you just don't fuck with. I don't know what I think about this earlier time change... (Do any of you have thoughts about it?)
  

I can tell that one of the biggest adjustments I have to make will be to working part-time, that I can't put things off till tomorrow because I won't be in tomorrow. I suspect it will make me a more efficient and productive worker.

It was also my first day back at work as a blogger, and that is weird. I feel like this kind of stuff is ok to blog about, but maybe it's not. But at least I'll have an outlet for bitching about the perfectly able bodied person who gets on the elevator to GO DOWN ONE FLOOR.

I was also surprised to discover that I'm actually kind of ambitious. Already I'm wondering about what new projects will come my way, if there will be opportunities for advancement. This is weird. I've never considered myself an ambitious person, and I certainly never thought I would feel ambitious after becoming a mother. Just the other day I was thinking about how I'd like Sugar Daddy to live up to the blog nickname he chose so that I could focus on blogging, making photos, and belly dancing, along with being Swee'pea's mum. I worry that at least one of those things will have to go now that I'm back at work, because I don't want to be the mother who's always on the typewriter with kid(s) always wanting to be her world.

This mothering business... I sure am learning a lot about myself.

Apropos of nothing, here is one of the snowboarders I saw on that yucky walk last week. Sugar Daddy helped me with/did the photoshop stuff.