Going Back

In a little more than a month (or less, depending on when I actually get this post out) I'll be returning to work. My RTW, as my boss has coined it. I'm excited. I've ordered a new wardrobe. I'm looking forward to interacting with mature adults on a daily basis (and not just vying for Bill's attention with my 3.5 year old the second he gets home from work). And I'm absolutely terrified.

Let's be honest, I checked out at work around 8 months pregnant. I remember my boss asked me to oversee a post buy report in November that wasn't due until mid Feb and in my head I was just like "Yup. Nope." So its really been over 6 months already since my mind was in the game. And things have also changed a lot in that time- lots of people have left. The last assistant that I hired back in November has already left (a pretty normal occurrence with entry-level). A few other assistants and buyers are gone too. But some have been big. The VP I was supposed to start reporting into when I returned, the only woman above me with 2 children around my age, and heck, one of the only colleagues above me with children, left in May. She was with the company for 15 years and I expected her to be there until... retirement? It opens up a lot of internal questioning that I'm not really ready to wrap my head around yet, but basically consists of, do I go for her spot? Do I want it? Can I do it? Of course I want to be a VP, I spoke to the head of our department about it before I left, but I was expecting it to be a 5 or so year out plan. Now its a thing and if there's one thing my company doesn't do, it's just hand out titles and promotions. It will be HARD. But now it's maybe a thing that's available to me to go for and I can barely wrap my head around handing my baby to a stranger to spend the majority of her week day with. I'm not there yet mentally is what I'm saying.

And my office is changing. Yes I work from home but I do still go in occasionally. We're now moving from being under one SBU to another and that includes an office shift, to 41st and 3rd. Mere blocks away from Grand Central which is amazing for me when I do go in. But change all the same. Even the SBU shift, while positive for the growth of the company, is change.

Another part of me is rolling my eyes. I will have had 6 months, to the day, with Isla. And I'm going back on a part time ease back arrangement for a month, working only 3 days a week. My work has a back-up care arrangement so I'm able to have Isla home with a nanny for 3 weeks while I transition back (and while I'm working from home). And I'll still have my same work from home arrangement too. My job is secure, none of my clients have changed. I'm going back to the same title, the same colleagues (for the most part), the  same bosses,  the same job I've been doing and rocking for the past nearly 15 years. My company is beyond flexible. I am beyond lucky.

And I've done this before, with Mo. Under much less flexible arrangements, (yes, same company). But that's when our village really came out to support us, with Bill waiting to take his 2 weeks of paternity until I went back, and then Aunt Joanie filled in for the remainder until Christmas break. So Mo didn't actually have to go to daycare until 4 months. And we were so lucky to have that.

And I'll only touch on this slightly since I really can't get immersive in the topic at this point, but for so many others in this country it's not that way. It's 12 weeks FMLA if you're lucky, which doesn't necessarily mean paid. It's going back before the stitches have healed, when the baby is teeny tiny, sometimes even before the first shots. Because you have to. You have to keep a roof over your head and meals on the table. It's not the luxuries, it's the necessities. I have a friend who I knew from my pre-child days in NYC, but who I feel actually closer to now that she lives in CA and is expecting her 3rd child (funny how relationships work out like that). but she actually wrote an article for a mama blog, called Mamazou that's a good, if not terribly frustrating, read, highlighting the parental leaves in other countries, as well as her own path with parental leave. Start there if you want to learn more.

I know how lucky I am. But it's still change and change is hard (that should really be the underlying theme of this blog, heck, of parenthood). But I want to get back, slowly, and work my way into it. I already talked to my boss about starting a parenting coffee meet-up at work- a no-judgement zone just to have working parents connect and commiserate over a cup of coffee (actually that is something my awesome sister implemented at her new job and I'm totally stealing the idea!). I can't wait to get back to running the Philanthropy committee, and have so many ideas there too. And of course, just working. The daily putting together of puzzles to create the perfect buy that is a media plan. I'm dreading it but I'm excited at the same time.

SAHM-hood has been the most unique of challenges for me, and I still feel a bit like a fraud calling myself one as I'm still collecting my own paycheck. But all the same, for all the yelling and unlimited requests and demands and exhaustion that is a 3.5 year old, a baby and a puppy, there are so many amazing moments I will cherish for the rest of my life, and I hope that Mo will remember those times too. Case in point, yesterday at gymnastics- which has been a challenging extracurricular for Mo (she hates waiting, and it's a lot of waiting)- she rang the bell. You really just ring the bell when you want to show off a new skill. Kids can go through a whole class without the bell ringing. Mo has never run the bell before. SO it's a big deal. And yesterday this happened!