Back to Work

Yesterday, I went back to work.  My seven weeks of living high off the hog on the taxpayer dime (or, at least, 55% of the taxpayer dime - so, 5.5 cents I suppose) had come to an end, and my sense of duty and our family's affinity toward having enough money to not live in squalor both prompted me to pull up my britches and bring home the bacon.

It's just yet another transition on the path of parenthood, and like most of the milestones on our journey, it's been different for everyone in the household.  For Katie, it meant losing me for most of the day, most days of the week.  More practically, it also meant being the only adult in a house with a toddler and an infant, suddenly needing to corral two small forces with only two hands.



For me, it meant not seeing Simon and Cecily whenever I wanted, and it meant injecting myself back into a professional mindset that I had been suppressing for nearly two months.  I'm lucky; I like my job, and it's a whole lot of fun to do.  I like the people I work with.  We have fun.  After all, we make video games.

So it's a mixed bag.  One of the things I missed most about work was the social factor; the constant social interaction with a large number of intelligent adults is not to be underestimated.  There's a small part of me that was definitely itching to get back to work.  At the same time, I wouldn't hesitate to stay at home longer if I could continue getting paid to take care of my children.  I like going to work, but not more than being with my wife and kids, all things being equal.

And what do Simon and Cecily make of all this?  Well, Simon's been through it once already and he seems to take everything in stride (except the occasional moment when he can't get a graham cracker right now). He said goodbye to me on my first day back at work like it was what he did every day, and then proceeded to have a grand time with Katie and Cecily, napping well and having fun all day.  I'm fairly certain that if a herd of goats appeared mysteriously in our house one morning, Simon would come downstairs when he woke up, point at them and say, "Daddy, look at all these goats!" and then proceed to eat his Cheerios and play with his monster truck.

It's hard to tell if my absence during the day has affected Cecily.  It's meant that, because there are less hands around, she's sometimes placed in her crib or playpen when she would have been carried or handed off to someone else before.  It's meant that my faceblob and muskscent hasn't been around as much for her to look at and smell.  But does she really know that anything's changed?

There is one big benefit to returning to work that I didn't have the last time my new parent leave ended.  Now, when I return home from work and open the door, there is a short stillness that covers the house, followed by the patter of running feet, as Simon bursts into the front room yelling, "It's Daddy!" and giving me a big hug.  It's kind of the best.