Today was my first day back at work since I was lumbering around with the Sprocket kicking and summersaulting inside me.
The kind of work that doesn't involve cleaning poop out of the bath, adjudicating mortal combat over cheerfully singing replica phones, picking up teddy bear pasta that's been flung over the floor, preventing escapes out of windows and singing What Shall we Do with the Drunken Sailor seventeen times in a row.
The paid type.
Woohoo! I was under-cover with the big-people.
It felt like covert spy work.
So this is what the other half are doing.
I'd forgotten.
Clean and quiet, spacious rooms with that gentle buzz of activity and productivity.
I didn't talk about my (amazingly clever, beautiful, kind, adventurous and creative) children at all. Unless someone asked, of course. I was so proud. I walked in repeating don't talk about the kids, don't talk about the kids, don't talk about the kids... and I pretty much succeeded. Mostly.
New search techniques to learn, new databases to explore, new safety drills to memorise, new names to remember. Everything was all shiny and new and exciting.
Except halfway through I started worrying I was going to start leaking and thought hmmm. Things I really should have remembered: breast-pads.
Milk-stains are not a professional look.
And I wondered if my Poppet was hungry and crying for her milk. Don't think about the Poppet crying, Don't think about the Poppet crying...
It's only casual work, a few hours a week, time for the Poppet to get used to being with other people and time for me to keep my skills up to date.
And at the end of my morning with the big people I hurried to pick up the Sprocket and Poppet to find the Sprocket with his face pressed up agains the glass of the door, waiting for me. And the Poppet reached out her arms to me. And the Sprocket told me all about everything while he hung to my legs. And the Poppet's little bare arms were as smooth and warm as petals in the sun as she clung to my neck.
And everything felt complete again.
The kind of work that doesn't involve cleaning poop out of the bath, adjudicating mortal combat over cheerfully singing replica phones, picking up teddy bear pasta that's been flung over the floor, preventing escapes out of windows and singing What Shall we Do with the Drunken Sailor seventeen times in a row.
The paid type.
Woohoo! I was under-cover with the big-people.
It felt like covert spy work.
So this is what the other half are doing.
I'd forgotten.
Clean and quiet, spacious rooms with that gentle buzz of activity and productivity.
I didn't talk about my (amazingly clever, beautiful, kind, adventurous and creative) children at all. Unless someone asked, of course. I was so proud. I walked in repeating don't talk about the kids, don't talk about the kids, don't talk about the kids... and I pretty much succeeded. Mostly.
New search techniques to learn, new databases to explore, new safety drills to memorise, new names to remember. Everything was all shiny and new and exciting.
Except halfway through I started worrying I was going to start leaking and thought hmmm. Things I really should have remembered: breast-pads.
Milk-stains are not a professional look.
And I wondered if my Poppet was hungry and crying for her milk. Don't think about the Poppet crying, Don't think about the Poppet crying...
It's only casual work, a few hours a week, time for the Poppet to get used to being with other people and time for me to keep my skills up to date.
And at the end of my morning with the big people I hurried to pick up the Sprocket and Poppet to find the Sprocket with his face pressed up agains the glass of the door, waiting for me. And the Poppet reached out her arms to me. And the Sprocket told me all about everything while he hung to my legs. And the Poppet's little bare arms were as smooth and warm as petals in the sun as she clung to my neck.
And everything felt complete again.
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