Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Somebody's got a case of the Mondays

Yeah, I know it's Tuesday, but every day feels like Monday all of a sudden. I returned to work last week, and it sucks. Bigtime.

I miss my babies. They're in daycare now. A daycare center came through for us at the last minute, and was able to take both babies for a price we could afford. We're paying just a few hundred dollars a month more than it would cost to send one baby to daycare. I'm pretty sure the only reason they were able to give us such a good deal is because they're desperate. There are TONS of daycare facilities near us, the vast majority are fancy shmancy new constructions. We're talking video monitors in every classroom, Raffi piped in on surround sound, playgrounds with rounded corners and that soft rubbery stuff on the ground as opposed to asphalt or wood chips. The place we're sending our babies? It's a bit worn, to put it nicely. There's no way they can compete with the shiny new facilities. At least the people who work there seem nice, and they seem to like the twins. And really, we had no choice.

Besides missing my babies terribly, the worst thing about being back at work is pumping here. I HATE HATE HATE pumping in the bathroom! It just grosses me out. It's a private bathroom with a lock, which is better than having to use one of the stalls but still. It's the only private bathroom in the building. You know what that means. It's the bathroom my co-workers use when they need to do their worst. There's nothing quite like preparing food for your children with the smell of a fresh dump (or even worse, a fresh dump and french vanilla air freshener) lingering in the air. My first day back, I just stood there and cried the whole time I pumped. The second day, I focused less on crying and more on making sure that absolutely nothing that touched the bottles touched any bathroom surface. Quite the challenge. I've heard rumors of places that give mothers a private non-bathroom place to pump, but for some reason, I don't think they really exist. My co-workers don't seem to see any problem with pumping in the bathroom, so maybe I'm just being a brat. I'd like to know what you think. So please, any working mothers out there, I'd love to know what your experience pumping at work has been like.