Just Another Work Meeting

Bobby had been a germ magnet! Last several months he's been gathering new germs with a cadence of what seems like every other week. 

Last week Bobby did not go to his play school, he was under the weather. So it was a week of juggling work, while caring for him and not getting enough sleep. 

Here's what happened one afternoon last week:

It was late afternoon. Bobby and I had had our lunch and it was time for his nap. I put Bobby to sleep and headed into my meeting. He was ok for sometime, but then I heard him cough. More coughing, almost non stop for sometime. Poor thing i thought. I came back and picked him up. Poor thing was tired of coughing and crying. I picked him out of his crib and sat with him. Put vicks on his back and feet and on his little baby nose. Then i told him he needs to go back to sleep. He didn't want to go back to crib and wanted to stay on the bed.  So, i put pillows all around him, covered him with a blanket, set baby sleep music on the speaker and told him to go back to sleep. After this I headed back to work. I had another meeting to get to. 

For some time it was all quiet in the house. Then after about 30 minutes, i heard a door close. Then, i heard another door open and close. Then another voice in another room. Then, some shuffling... soon the little boy emerged, looked me in the eye from the study door, and ran away. I continued talking in my meeting and pretended i didnt see him! More noises came from another part of the house, and soon the boy came strutting back. This time i was intently talking to a collegue. That's when Bobby came to the study and said "Mumma, i have poopoo". "I have poopoo Mumma", he repeated, just in case anyone on my meeting had not heard it.  I was deep into a conversation, so in stead, Bobby proceeded to play with the curious looking buttons under my desk. I have recently gotten a stand up/sit down desk, so the buttons under the desk are all curious play things for him. Suddenly, while i was in my work conversation, i noticed my laptop was not charging anymore. Then, it started charging again but my monitor went dark suddenly. Then it came back momentarily, only to go dark again. The badmaash boy was under my desk turning buttons on and off. Soon, the boy decided to sit on my chair behind me, but in that process hurt his leg. It was time for me to go off camera and speaker, and wrap up my meeting!

Just another regular work meeting with a twist! 

Worksheets

To get her ready for the new school year which will start soon enough, Dad printed some worksheets for little miss Haana to do during the day. There were a few pages of Math problems, and then one page of reading comprehension with several questions on the back for her to write answers for. I was working my half days on the dining table. 

From the corner of my eye I saw little miss Haana working on her work sheet. First, diligently on the math problems. Then after that, she disappeared briefly with the worksheets. I heard drawers open and shut, tape being pulled from the tape-roll, metal scissors, more drawers open and shut. In a few minutes, the girl was back and reported that she was done with her work. She left the worksheets and disappeared to have some well-earned fun!

Later Raj was checking her work in the worksheet. Math problems were solved correctly. Then he flipped over to the reading comprehension. The reading passage was printed on one side, and what was this white sheet of paper stuck to the backside? Instead of answering the questions for the reading comprehension, the girl stuck a white paper over the questions, and called it done! Apparently life is too short to be spent over answering reading comprehension questions!  This school semester will be a long one ;)!

Leaving for work

Most days when I leave for work Suhaana is fast asleep. She gets up around 5, has her milk and goes right back to sleep. But today, she was up and about at 5. She was rolling around on the bed, till I finally got up.

My mom picked her up and got her downstairs. As I was fixing to go to work, Suhaana was just watching me, with naughty and watchful eyes. Watching if mommy will play with her some more or is she leaving. So heart meltingly cute, I just didn't want to leave for work. It's way easier when she's sleeping and I hover over her and cover her with kisses before leaving for work. All the while she's fast asleep and merely twitching at the mild annoyance of having me snuggle her.

No, it's difficult leaving for work when she's asleep and it's way more difficult with her big eyes watching me fixing to leave. Because every second, I feel like running back and taking her in my arms and coddle her some more.

Back to Work. Day 1,2 and 3.

And finally the day arrived. April 15th. Tax day, yes. But also marked in red on my calendar as the day I join back work. After a break of 6 months and 22 days. And ever since I'd committed to joining in on 4.15, the days have been rolling off at an even faster pace.

It's my third day back at work today, and even though the first day is supposed to be the hardest, it hasn't gotten any easier so far. In fact, I have a feeling this is going to get a whole lot harder. That is because while I'm doing just half days for the first two weeks, I'll move into the usual full day schedules from week 3, and that's when things would get busy.

That said, I do have a lot to be thankful for. I'm getting back to an excellent team - folks I've worked with, known and been friends with for a long time. I feel quite fortunate to know such good people and to work with them. My boss is someone who values me immensely and has been especially flexible towards all my requests and needs. I had been postponing getting back to work for quite some time now, but he's been very, very understanding. I also, requested to do only half days for the first two weeks, to ease into the work schedule and have someone watching the little girl. I feel like I'm getting back amongst friends.

Even so, the drive from home to work on day 1, was the bad. Since the night before, I felt so uneasy. It was as if I were going for a big test. I could barely sleep the night before. And that morning, I felt strangely numb. Little Suhaana was sleeping unaware. She'd gotten up several times during the night, and Raj had taken up the night duty. But as I was getting ready to leave, she was deep in her beauty sleep. Lying on her tummy, a cute little, inviting, cuddle-fest. Anyhow, I tried not to wake her up, and left before 8am.

At work, my team had, quite characteristically, hidden my work computer, and replaced it with a museum grade typewriter from the year 1830 (the latest technology desktop - they claimed), added 3 more telephone lines to make it look like the command center for all defects; and amassed a huge pile of documents-to-be-taken-care-of.. the "In" pile. We laughed about it for hours. Most of the day I answered questions about how Suhaana is. Leading right up to a welcome lunch.

Day 2 starting off was actually worse. The little girl was up, had just been fed (by Raj again) and was busy with her morning round of fun-n-games on the bed next to Raj. It was harder leaving her behind this time.

Day 3 morning was quite similar to Day 2. The tiny cuddle-ball had just gotten up as I was leaving at 6:40am. Just in time for me to smother her with kisses, as she gave me the are-we-done-yet look :)

I might sound a bit weepy, and though I'm glad to see all my good friends and great coworkers; it's still hard getting back to work. And though getting back to work, and into an active technical area was always a given for me, the real question being only when, and not whether; I still question if this arrangement is what is best for Suhaana. Especially as I look for and sift through the options of care centers and nannies for her from her 10th month. (My mom who gets here in 2 weeks, would leave by then.) Yesterday, I went to tour a montessory/care center for her; and I was reading some papers on their policies, that went into detail talking about how early parents need to pick up their sick child, and how long they must wait before they can send their sick child back to the center. Just the tone sounded like the child ends up being a pass-the-buck-liability between the center and the parents. I do realize I'm being overly touchy about this, but for anything else (including work), I wouldn't think of my child as a liability I need to manage between work. Meanwhile, the little girl has more smothering hugs headed her way as soon as I get off from work.