Motherhood is weird, no matter how you slice it. If you are a stay-at-home mom, your day is freaking strange. If you're a work-from-home mom, you're day is super odd. And, you guessed it, if you're a working mom, you're faced with your own set of unique challenges that can make things, well, awkward. Thankfully, the weird things every new mom does when she's working are things that are understandable, necessary (I'd argue) and hilarious, so once you get past the fact that, hey, this is real life now, you can laugh at the bizarre string of situations that is motherhood.
Right after my son was born, I went back to work but, at the time, work meant I was working from home. As a freelance writer with my own schedule, sitting on a couch and nursing a newborn while I typed away on the computer was, while exhausting, somewhat feasible. Now I go into an office every day, which requires me to actually separate from my kid. Yeah, that's much harder than I originally thought it would be. I was so looking forward to getting out of the house and being around human beings who know how to use toilets, but I didn't realize how hard it would be, too. I couldn't wait to advance my career and do what I loved around like-minded, creative people, but it meant I wouldn't be spending as much time around my son and that, well, was somewhat devastating.
That strange mix of happiness and sadness, of excitement and dread and of accomplishment and failure, is one of the many reasons why new moms do some very strange (albeit necessary) things at work. Here are just a few, and things that I definitely did when I returned to an office. Hey, solidarity, right?