I still love my baby....

Today concludes my first week back to work from maternity leave and I've learned a few things:

• I retain knowledge like an elephant
• I'm definitely better at being a working mom over a stay-at-home mom
• If I'm not caffeinated by 7:00am, I turn into an angry bear with a migraine
• I need a full eight hours sleep to function
• My lady parts hurt after standing on a concrete floor wearing the wrong shoes for eight hours
• I'm suffering from some insane mommy guilt

Let's address that last one... The mommy guilt. It starts when I have to wake my little guy up in the morning from a deep sleep, continues as I'm getting him dressed and he's half asleep, and escalates when I drop him off at daycare crying like a madman. I'm bombarded with statements and questions  such as "MY wife stayed home with our kids", "don't you want to stay home?", "doesn't the cost of daycare cancel out your salary?", and my personal favourite, said by another mother, "so you haven't seen your little guy all day?" You know what? No, no I fucking haven't so fuck right off with your condescending words and self righteous attitude. 

My life does not completely revolve around motherhood, although it's probably been the centre of my universe for the past year. I have outside interests: work, adult socialising, school, live music, and beer, lots and lots of beer. I was fortunate enough to see two different groups of people last night and was enjoying myself very much until the guilt set in, the never ending guilt. When I got home, I immediately went upstairs to my son's room, knelt next to his crib, reached my hand in and stroked his cheek. I took the dog for a late-night stroll and cried ugly tears until I couldn't any more and returned home. I was fortunate enough to have a friend to message throughout all of this ugly crying and she talked me off the ledge, so-to-speak. I went to sleep hoping today would be better. When I awoke I definitely felt a little better about the whole thing but felt as though I still had a brick attached to my heart as I kissed my baby and walked out the door for work. 

I know that eventually these feelings will fade and I'll fall right back into my old, new life but right now it's really fucking hard; harder than I ever thought it would be. My little guy came to visit me at work today and I did not want to let go but eventually I had to when he started throwing things around and getting pissy because I wouldn't let him play with my scanner, mouse, and keyboard. At that moment I realised that no matter what, I'm a mother, an employee, a friend, and a girlfriend. It's really just a matter of finding the perfect balance between all four.