Our First Week

Now, for the update you wanted. We survived our first week of work, daycare, commuting, and all else that entails! I would say we passed with flying colors with only small glitches.

If you will recall, a month ago Benjamin was having major separation anxiety. Whether I left him with mom, MIL, or even DH, he would spend the whole time I was gone screaming. It was not fun for anyone. Well, from the middle of May until I started work, I did not leave him with anyone like that again, not even ONE TIME. I kept saying "its not worth it!" and taking him with me.  Benjamin grew up SO MUCH in that month, I was hoping he had gotten over that anxiety as well. We had some evidence he had - he let DH take care of him more (if I was upstairs or whatever) and in general did not cry/whine for me to come and get him when others held him. But still, I was nervous about how he would react to daycare. I had this irrational scenario that I would get a call half the way through my first workday saying he had not stopped screaming since I left and someone needed to come get him. Or, even if they did not call me, if he screamed the whole first day how would I be able to face dropping him off the second day?

Luckily I did not have to deal with either of these scenarios. He was fussy for them the first day, and he did not want to take a bottle, but he improved even from the morning to afternoon. By day two he was doing even better. Day three, he stayed home w/DH because the flooding and treated it like it was entirely normal (did not miss me at all). By day four, Thursday, he took a normal size bottle and had a great day. Not all the kinks are quite worked out. He is not going down great for naps with them. They don't have the pitch dark or the white noise that we sometimes use at home to have him go to sleep on his own, and they are also struggling to put him down if they rock him to sleep. We had not had issues with that for awhile, but it has returned as a problem at home as well. I am sure we all will continue to adjust!

And my work week? This was a week of training, it is not very organized training though. I can tell you what I do now. Basically, when people are deemed eligible for Medicaid by their respective state, they get to choose which company they want their Medicaid through and my company is one of those options for many states (around 20 and growing I believe). The state then sends a huge file of all of the people who should be enrolled in the Medicaid program at our company. We run that file through a system that is supposed to automatically enroll them. My job will be dealing with all of the people who "fall out" of that system and do not enroll automatically for whatever reason, and making sure they get enrolled. I am, of course, not the only person who does this. There are three units that do it, and my unit is about twenty people. I think it will be interesting to learn all the ins and outs of the various state programs, but I do not think this job will be as challenging as my last.

The best part about my new "normal" day? Arriving at daycare to pick Benjamin up, and the way he reacts when he sees I am there. When I take him he grabs my face and coos and tries to eat me. its the most adorable thing ever.