lessons from the first week.

10 lessons learned this week after going back to work full-time after 6 amazing months on maternity leave:

1. Be sure to wear water-proof mascara and preferably bring eye drops for day #1's 45 minute, sob-fest commute.
2. My arguably over-the-top prep work totally paid off. When those countless random thoughts came to mind while at work (did I remember to tell her that Audrey likes this or to not let Jackson do this...) I could quickly dismiss them because I knew I had covered them (yes, in the 12-page nanny guide).
3. Trust is everything. Knowing that my babies were in hands that I 100% trust is priceless and absolutely not a negotiable area.
4. The love for getting dressed in my "business clothes" has not diminished one little bit since I was a little girl dreaming of doing so.
5. Pack my lunch. My new office site has sub-par food options and I regretted it majorly when I decided to not pack a couple of days.
6. Caffeine is my most needed assistant. Full-time schedule + 2 babies 2 and under means I got an average of maybe 6 hours of sleep each night. Thankfully Dan has taken on coffee-making-duty to help with the 5:30 wake-up call.
7. I am not a morning person, so while building in timing padding in the morning is not fun at first, it is so worth it to not have to rush around as much, especially since the babies are so unpredictable with their needs. Bonus: I actually had a little "play time" with them both on multiple occasions before work!
8. The lessons I learned from going back from maternity leave last time definitely helped set expectations for myself, making it a little smoother.
9. But, on the flip side, leaving a 2 year old (plus an infant) is completely different than just leaving an infant. In other words, he talks and he totally knows what is going on which makes leaving him in the morning 100 times harder.
10. And lastly, the most important lesson, in my opinion, which I failed to really keep in mind the first time I went back to work after having a baby is to be 100% clear, 100% of the time on why you are doing what you're doing. What is your ultimate purpose for working full-time. And to be clear, it must be more than "to make money"... because lets face it, our time with our children is priceless, so it must be at a much higher level than that. Dan and I have had multiple conversation on this- both for him and for me- and so we are crystal clear and therefore inspired and driven to be the best we can be both when we're at home and when we're in the office. And that is the absolute key difference, for me, on why I ended my first week completely fulfilled in all parts of life.