Two weeks before my first day back to work after maternity leave for my second child, I met a friend for afternoon tea. We chatted for an hour, each of us bobbing our babies in our laps to keep them content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the first time in weeks, I had to carry on a conversation with another adult that extended past the territory of “How old is your baby?” and “Do you want your receipt?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But my alone switch kept flipping to the ON position several times during the mommy date. Suddenly, I would hear myself saying—in a regular voice for everyone<\/strong> around me to hear—the things I say to my baby when no one else is around. Like “You need to sleep, you little turkey lurkey” and “Did you make a popo?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plus, my eyes kept drifting down to the baby, anxious to make sure I hadn’t accidentally let her head loll forward and smack into the table, and also just to see her sweet little face because I missed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I’d catch myself. Oh wait, grown-ups are supposed to make eye contact.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So I’d pull my eyes back up to my friend’s face, a little sheepish for having looked away. And probably also for saying “popo.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly, I wasn’t quite ready for my return to work after maternity leave.<\/p>\n\n\n