Pictures at work

I finally put pictures of Gwyneth up at my desk. You see, when I came back to the working world in July,  I covered my entire desk in every picture I could find of Gwen. On my desktop, as my screensaver, in frames all over my desk. I hung her cute little artwork up on my bulletin board.

I noticed, after awhile that it made me miss her more.  It was as if every picture was a constant reminder of how she wasn’t with me and how badly I would have rather been at home with her.

When I got promoted and moved into a new workspace, I brought only one picture and two art projects with me.  I knew it probably looked a little odd, the mother with another on the way having only one lonesome picture of her family on her desk. But it worked, it helped me keep my mind off the fact that I was at work while Gwen is at daycare.

I recently found myself as the recipient of a few instagrams I had printed off that were décor in our kitchen and thought to myself, “these must go on my desk.” They are my favorite pictures of Gwen, and it doesn’t do them any justice being stuffed in an envelope in a pile of files until we have a kitchen again. So today I took my washi tape and put those babies up all over my desk, like a normal working Mom would do.

And wouldn’t you know? It makes me reflect keenly on that cute daughter of mine, instead of socking me in the stomach with a sudden awareness of how much I miss that little girl during the work day.

So who knows what this means. I’ve finally adjusted, almost a year later, to going back to work? That those feelings of guilt and anger towards having to work are fading into the background? Or it could simply be that Gwen was quite difficult this morning and she made me feel a lot better about dropping her off at daycare for the day.

All I know is that it’s nice to be a parent who can put pictures of their family up at their desk, because it was just plain weird when I didn’t have any and I'm sure it spoke volumes of my mental stability if you were into such things. 

On another note, look at the pretty flowers I got from the crew at work. It's administrative professionals week, did you know (but really, tomorrow is the official day, since when do silly made up holidays become weeks?).