Carla Schoepfle

Well this was the first week back from maternity leave (although NG doesn’t call it maternity leave - it’s some sort of family medical leave disability thing - which is administratively treated the same way as if I’d had some horrible disease).  Work was pretty light for me this week since my project had a release scheduled for Friday and was trying to minimize code changes.  So next week should become a bit busier.  Not totally sure what I’ll be doing - but I do know I am expecting to be busier.

Day care has worked out pretty well this week.  Poor Pete has the “bad guy” job of dropping the little man off to day care, and I get the “good guy” job of picking him up.  Tuesday was the toughest since I visited the little man at lunch.  It was really hard to leave him and go back to work at the end of my lunch break.  I’m thinking I’ll generally choose to pick him up a bit earlier instead of visiting at lunch, but we’ll see (I’m allowed to change my mind on this).

Figuring out how to pack to get back to work was a bit of a challenge though.  Luckily one of Pete’s co-workers came up with the good idea of an emergency diaper (a zip lock bag with a “box of rags” rag, a diaper, and three diaper wipes) for the unlikely event he needs a new diaper in the short commute from daycare pickup to home (1 stop on the train and a half mile walk).  That allowed me to avoid taking the big diaper bag to work every day.  So I could minimize my packing with the breast pump and the infant carrier, plus two emergency diapers.  At least I can fit this amount of stuff into a backpack instead of requiring a full on suitcase.

The little man has taken the commute home very well.  When I pick him up, I put him in my infant carrier, put my backpack on, and take the metro home (one stop).  He’s generally fallen asleep in the carrier before I get on the train.  Still trying to work out where I might be able to park a bike with an infant trailer so we could ride the bike on nicer days!