Or: Reasons Why It Doesn’t Completely Suck to Go Back To Work:
Green tomatoes from my coworker (because before I left for maternity leave I was talking about how I wanted to make fried green tomatoes.)   Nice.

I used to hate this door.  I made fun of it regularly and often talked about putting a picture of Spike on there.  I didn’t understand why I had to be assaulted by everyone’s grandbaby pictures every time I went into the kitchen.

But then I came back from being gone and someone in the office had printed a monster sized picture of my baby’s head and stuck it in the middle of the door.  Hammerhead dominates the kitchen door. Anybody going into the kitchen is totally assaulted by her 10-minute-old face.  Now I hate it less.  I actually kind of love it.

Oh hey there XXX cubetree, nice to see you again.

And finally, I had never realized how enjoyable it can be listening to music and filing 2 months worth of emails uninterrupted.  I really appreciated that on Monday.  It’s since lost a little bit of its shine, but still.  Uninterrupted time is nice.

…and with that, week #1 DONE.  Happy weekend!

Breastfeeding is kind of weird.   Pumping is weirder.  Pumping in the office because you went back to work before the baby is eating regular food is weirdest.

But thanks to some pushing from my boss, my employer is providing me with a room where I can pump (or, as our (male) HR manager refers to it, a “lactation station”.  Said in all seriousness.)

Our office is in a big building.  My firm is on the 4^th floor.  The room is on the 7^th.  So yesterday I was handed a key, taken up to the empty 7th floor, and led to a nondescript door.

We opened the door.

This is not just a room(/station).  It’s an entire office suite.  A completely empty office suite.  With lots of empty rooms.

Random, abandoned furniture and books (including Dallas Cowboys: The Authorized Pictorial History).  Holes in the ceiling.  Holes in the wall.  Plaster peeling off the walls, littering the ground.

It is very empty and potentially really creepy.  Especially the sink.

And not because it looks like you might get tetanus from touching the sink, but because there is a huge hole in the ceiling right above where you stand to wash your hands.  And yesterday, as I was rinsing out the equipment, I heard this scratching/thumping noise coming from inside the ceiling.  Right above my head.

I couldn’t tell if it was something happening on another floor, or a huge rat (or person) about to launch an aerial attack through the car-sized hole.  (I don’t know why it is that every time I hear an unidentified noise anywhere I assume it’s something coming to attack me. But I do.  Especially when I’m in a locked room on an abandoned floor far from anybody who might hear my screams.)

Nothing happened.  This time.  I brought my mace today.

HOWEVER!  In the room that I actually pump in, there is a really nice view aaand…

…a couch.  And after getting a feel of what my sleep patterns might be over the next few months….heeeeelllooooo lactation station.