The life of this working mom

For my own memory down the line, I thought I would document and share my current schedule:
3:30-4:00am - Gwen's typical wake-up and eat time
5:00am - wake up to get ready for work (that one hour of extra sleep is TOTALLY worth it) and pump
6:00-7:00am - drive to work...hope for really good music that can wake me up (the book on tape requires too much mental engagement that early in the morning)
8:30am - pump. Now, it's worthwhile to note that pumping in my office to 100% akward. Not only do I feel it's just weird to have my boobs out at work, I hate thinking that other people know that I have my boobs out at work....it's a lot to adjust to. Fortunately I had a lock put on my door last Friday cause that chair wedged up against the door handle just didn't provide enough emotional security for me. Can you imagine anything more horrific than someone walking in and seeing me sitting there in my hands free pump bra and funnels? god.
11:30am - pump
2:30pm - pump
3:30pm (ish) - leave work to go pick up Gwen
5:00pm - pick up Gwen from Rachael's house. Usually she's just getting up from a nap, well fed and HAPPY (thank you nanny Sarah!). This is absolutely one of the best parts of my day. That first smile is enough to wipe away any stress or bad remnants from work. Man she sure is cute.
5:00-6:00(ish) - play play play.
6:00pm (ish) - Gwen will usually take about a 30 min nap at some point in the early evening. This is when I make my dinner attempts which I have to say have been pretty darned good lately. I'm not going to go so far as to call myself a good cook but I'm pretty proud that I'm able to get food on the table and usually eat in about 30min or less. I''ll admit that I do rely on frozen meals about half of the time....sometimes I just don't feel like cooking.
7pm - 8:30/9:00pm - I get another hour or so of Gwen time and while she's not as bright and shiney as she usually is in the morning, we still have a great time cause by this time dad is usually done working and he is brilliant at making her laugh. We also give her a nice bath about every other night...she loves it. This is another one of my favorite times of the day.
9:00/9:30pm - Time for bed. Too often I get sucked into something and end up staying up till 10pm but I need more than 6 hours of sleep so I'm trying to get to bed earlier these days.

All in all we're making it work. Being back in the office is fine. I really like the people I work with so it makes the days enjoyable. My perspective on the work has certainly changed though, but I think it's for the better. I'd say I've definitely been forced to be more efficient with my time as I can't work into the wee hours of the night anymore and I think my team is starting to get used to me not being available 24/7 via blackberry. Yay! I always hated that blackberry anyways.

So I'll leave you with this latest working mom learning moment: Last week I rushed back to my office after a meeting as I was late to pumping and I felt like I had rocks on my chest. I whipped out my pump, plugged in the funnels, got my 'hands free' bra thing in place and started her up. I was a good 3 minutes into the process when I felt wetness on the top of my legs. I had completely forgotten to put the collection bottles on the funnels...milk everywhere. Not cool with black pants on. As any good mom does, I had a stash of wet wipes in my purse though so all was well...except that I lost a good 2 ounces which sucks cause that milk is like pure gold.