"Working Mother" = redundant OR, phrased another way, shoot me now

Mommyhood is HARD. Seriously. There is a Darwinian reason that nature makes infants so gosh darn cute. It's so they will survive the day - cause they can't do Jack for themselves, and, frankly, in the early days, they really aren't all that entertaining. In fact, they are downright annoying at times. They are kinda like tiny little asexual Paris Hiltons. Good thing they have their looks. They are, all in all, just a f-load of WORK.
The cruelty of 'life today' means that riiiiight about the time they start to suck a little less - adding cooing and gurgling to their to-date limited vocabulary of shrieks - that's exactly the time your maternity leave is up. Which is like, now. That's right folks - I'm back at work. My OTHER work I mean... the corporate stuff that you can get paid for.
I'm only sort of back, in that my brain is still firmly attached to the infant. Not literally, cause, ew. But figuratively, the hormonally-driven two-way baby clinginess is far far more powerful than I gave it credit for being. I miss the creature - the same creature who keeps me up at all hours, who poops on me, and who chews on my nipples for fun - I MISS her. Clearly this is not a feeling driven by logic.
The 'work' part is a little shaky. In part because, compared to what it takes to keep an infant alive during the first few months of its life, my job can hardly be called work. It's bordering on being a vacation, comparatively speaking. A wicked boring one, but still. I am still expected to produce things, for my pay, and that has been a bit of a challenge.
In part because the small segment of my brain that is not attached to the infant and has managed to make itself present in meetings and whatnot, is TIRED. Bone weary tired. Drooling on oneself tired. Consequently, some of my contributions are tending toward the, 'I don't know whatever you think' category. Others are just, well, lame. See, some people work fine on low sleep. Me? I start walking into walls and giggling to myself. Not really employee of the month type behavior.
One of the other little barriers to peak employee performance are my boobs. I'm not Dolly Parton so they've never really had a large impact on, well, anything before, much less work. But now? Since I've managed to get them up to speed on the babyjuice production, they require a lot more maintenance. Specifically, just like the cows in the fields, if I don't get milked regularly, I start to hurt. And/or leak. Both suck (no pun intended). So every few hours I have to take a midevil style boob sucking torture device roughly the size shape and weight of a cellular phone from 1981 down to the officially designated tata room and have at it. Which is just (and there is no better phrase to describe it) flat-out weird. Some things should not be brought into the work place. Rack Milking is one of those things. But here we are.
So between the exhaustion, the hormonal baby yearnings, and the Bessie the Cow deal, I can't honestly say that I feel like I am running at peak performance. In spite of all these however, I AM able to add a few sniblets of value - enough that I am not a TOTAL waste of space here. Some hours it's touch and go though.
The infant meanwhile is currently hangin with relatives, and apparently being incredibly easy to deal with. "She's SUCH a good baby!!!" This is because she saves allllll her cranky up til mommy's home. Now, granted, my arrival home tends to coincide with when she starts to get tired ( 6 or 7pm which my mommy friend refers to as the 'arsenic hour' ). But still. Its hard not to wonder if there is something deliberate there....or if the relatives are drugging her somehow. And if they are, can I get some of what they are dishing out?
In the next week or two she will be starting 'school' aka day care at work. We struggled with the decision on where to put her/keep her. With relatives is nice AND free, which is no small benefit. But they have lives to lead, lives that don't always mesh with the schedules of the infant. On the flip, daycare = no scheduling conflicts ever, but wicked expensive. Ultimately, family could only help for the the summer anyway, and we got a slot in the work daycare which is like, the Harvard of baby care. So we went for it. They seriously have a 'gym' just for babies. A baby gym. seriously. And, I feel pretty sure that the bean will do great there. Like mommy and daddy, she has the attention span of a hamster, and anything bright and shiny and new is considered good to her. They have a LOT of bright shiny and new at this place - more than we could ever provide even at home. We'll know for sure her review of the facilities next week, and I'll report back in. For now, I'm going back to 'work'....