I thought we needed a new title...

It occurred to me today that perhaps this site needed a new title. The above title is the best thing I could come up with on little sleep and a brain full of caffeine. If you can suggest a better title, please leave it in the comments.

Well, I'm back at work today. A full working day. Weird. But I have discovered a few things.

1. I am relieved to have some time away from baby.
2. I miss the baby.
3. Although I always had planned to become a SAHM, I have spent eight years in the professional world and will have a hard time parting from it.
4. I have eight weeks left of work until I quit to be a SAHM, and I'm not sure it's going to be enough to get everything settled.
5. Eight weeks is too long to be away from my baby.

As you can see, I'm a bit conflicted.

I find myself oddly energized being back at work after a seven-week baby hiatus. I find my job to be stimulating and exciting. In an ideal world, I would take on one or two of my bajillion projects on a contract basis (as in, get paid to do them) and come to the office one or two days a week to accomplish those things. Then I could happily spend the rest of my time at home with the wee one.

Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world, and there's no money to replace me AND have me do some contract work as well. Even though this position could be expanded to two full-timers and still have room to grow.

You see, I work for the Church. I plan certain types of programming for this Catholic Diocese. I LOVE it. For years, I have been expanding the programs and program areas offered by my office. And there are a million other programming areas that could be explored by this position (as always in ministry). There are infinite possibilities. Lots of people out there who could be served. But there's only one me (and one me-replacement). Seriously, we could staff an office of six or eight people devoted to this work and still have room to grow. And I LOVE doing this work. (Did I say that already?)

On the other side of the coin, there is NO WAY I could continue doing this full time. It is too hard to be away from the baby that often. But as much as I love my baby and love spending time with her, I need both the social and professional stimulation of working in these ministries. So, it looks like I will be volunteering my time for a project here and a project there. Not that I mind volunteering, but it would certainly help our bottom line (and my motivation) if there were some money behind it.

Now on to some baby talk. The baby is off schedule. Like SEVERELY off schedule. During our Christmas "vacation"...the week between the holidays when we were both off work, we did not spend even one full day at home. We were off to this party and that gathering, and the baby suffered. Which, of course, meant that we suffered. On the days when were weren't required to be anywhere before noon, we all slept until about 9:30 (the baby, of course, waking to eat a couple of times). This has royally screwed up the baby. We had to wake her at 6:30 this morning to get her fed and clothed and off to the sitter, and I think she was a little bit upset with us. But now, it's up to us to get her up at 6:30 every morning so that we can start training her little body to be on a consistent schedule. We'll see if this holds up on the weekends when we sleep-deprived working parents have to be motivated to wake a sleeping baby instead of continuing to sleep ourselves.

Eight weeks people. This is what it's going to be like for EIGHT WEEKS. Serious sleep deprivation ahead. Be warned that it may affect the content of this site. This is my venue for serious complaining, so I'm just letting my three readers know now that I may be a little grumpy. Now on to something productive, before the caffeine wears off.