Return of the DDJ

After Drew's nasty doctor appointment last week, we went to visit my fine co-workers at the DDJ. They oohed and aahed appropriately. Drew spent some time chatting with my supervisor, but mostly he was all tuckered from the immunizations and showed everyone how angelic he looks while zonked out. It was strange for me to be there. With everything that's happened since the beginning of October, I almost forgot I had a job to go back to. My life's been a series of hours stuck together that make it rather difficult to think too far in the future. But I got smacked with the reality of returning to the DDJ, and I suppose it was best to face it now then on the drive there my first day back when I'm also dealing with putting Drew in day care. I'm not looking forward to that drive to work. I think my vision may be hampered by a flood of tears.

I know the DDJ is temporary, and that the end is now clearly in sight. But it was rather depressing to visit and find out that nothing much has changed since I left. The work I left in the middle of for Drew's arrival is for the most part still waiting for me--even though it was supposedly urgent way back then. More people have left the company, and not all of them have been replaced. And the few replacements are either sub-par or have been given so little training that they may as well be sub-par. I think I may have to put a countdown somewhere on the blog so I can watch the days of the DDJ dwindle.

I'm just glad I was able to take the full 12 weeks that state law allows me. Not just for my health issues, but for my mother issues. Each day with this boy is a gift of firsts, of simple pleasures, of what's really important in life. It's hard to think how I'm going to have to pack all that into the evenings and weekends instead. And I don't want to think about missing his first word, his first crawl, his first rolling over, etc. But the chances of it happening as these few months of necessary day care roll by...ick.

I heard a Best Buy radio ad recently in which the woman said she was a working mom and off-handedly remarked how that was cliche. I was torn between whether such a comment was a victory for women's rights or proof of the double standard women face in the workplace. Would we ever call a "working dad" a cliche? Well, not for a long while yet since we don't even use that descriptor. It's assumed that the dad works, but it's a special thing if the mom works. But now it's also cliche, like so many women are doing this that it's become tired and overused? This strikes me as odd because I thought things like being a housewife or a soccer mom were cliche. So what does that leave women to do to be original? You know what, I don't want to answer that. And I don't want to be labeled a "working mom". I'm a woman with a job who also happens to have a child. Just like Mark is a man with a job who also happens to have a child. Or reverse that. We're parents who also happen to have jobs. That's putting things in the right perspective.