Working from Home

I have no idea how some mothers have jobs that allow them to work from home while raising their children. HOW DO YOU PEOPLE GET ANYTHING DONE?!

On Thursday afternoon, while I was in a meeting, I missed many calls from Brenna's daycare. I immediately called back and found out that she had three "loose bm's" (their polite way of saying diarrhea) and needed to be picked up. Yes, there are limits to the number of runny poopy diapers the babies can have a day, even if they are not sick and do not have a temperature. This has happened before, and she hasn't even been there two months.

Upon getting there five minutes later, I found out that I could not bring her back the next day. I even had to sign a form saying I would not. The new policy at the daycare center is that children must be symptom free for 24 hours, so I was free to bring her back around 3:00 p.m. on Friday. Gee, that is really helpful. I'm sure my new boss will think my arrival at 3:00 p.m. is a great idea. And of course, the daycare center will charge us $50 for the day even if they forbid her attendance.

I decided to take Brenna back to my office for the remainder of Thursday's work day, and I had to let my co-workers know I could not come in the next day. I would just work from home. Honestly, I don't know if working from home is even allowed -I've never heard of anyone else working from home. However, when I said I was doing it, people just replied, "Okay." I don't think they knew what else to say.

Not that my working from home looked like a likely story. The day I planned to be out of the office was a Friday. And Brenna looked like the picture of health as she flashed huge smiles at everyone and babbled her happy giberish. Oh, well.

(As a side note, it's so funny how there are two extremes in the workplace. There are the co-workers that make a HUGE deal over the fact that there is a baby in the office and they exclaim up and down the halls about how cute the baby is. They go on and on and on. And then there are the people who walk right by your office, and obviously see you have this miniature person on your lap, but they act like they don't notice. As if they are too busy to say, "Hey, looks like there might be a baby in the office." These people are strange to me... I hope they all get pregnant tomorrow, whether they are men, women or really old.)

So, anyway, back to working from home with my non-sick baby with the runs: Friday morning went great. We woke up and Brenna FED HERSELF a 4 oz. bottle in her bouncy seat in the bathroom while I showered. I called her Kelly Clarkson, my own little Miss Independent. It was so cute to watch.

Then I took her with me to go hear a State Rep. speak. I had to take photos for a story I am doing. Brenna was so good. She actually sat there and seemed to listen to the politician speak, quietly aware. She happily let a colleague of mine hold her... a stranger! Amazing.

We came home and I uploaded the photos and worked and listened to Jamie's ITunes while she played on a play mat next to me. Sometimes we stopped to dance around the basement to fun songs. I explained to Brenna that she was from the city of American Bandstand (or close enough... her mom and extended family were all from there, anyway). After hearing the history, you could tell that she loved MoTown. And as we were dancing, I sat her down, and she actually sat up by herself for a little bit!

We were having a great work-from-home day... and that's when things started going downhill. When we were down the basement, the electricity went out.

I had no access to my computer, so it made my work from home plan look even more questionable. We went upstairs in pitch black. Finally it came back on, which was when I got a call from my boss saying that someone in our organization had tested positive for a highly publicized staph infection.

So, Brenna started getting restless after a day of being perfect, and she needed my attention, while I had to contact everyone and their mother and post information and links regarding this disease.

Meanwhile, bottles and laundry and junk of all kind was all over my house, Brenna would NOT nap and was very cranky, and my cousin and her husband planned to come right after work to see us.

Then there was a huge difference in the story I sent out and one another source sent out regarding the case, and I was contacted to clear everything up (the other story was a misunderstanding). I was pacing my foyer with Brenna in a stroller in an attempt to get her to sleep (it was pouring rain outside), and she finally fell asleep about five seconds before Jamie came home (of course).

By that time, I wanted to pull all my hair out. Which I really shouldn't do because my post-pregnancy hormones are causing my hair to fall out in clumps, so nature is doing it for me.

It was a long day. I have no idea how people work from home and juggle children and work at the same time, from the same place. God bless all of you women!