first day back

Today was my first day back to work and besides being super exhausted, I thought it went really well. Austin woke up a little more than normal which I was weirdly kind of happy about because I got to see him before I left for work. I arrived on one of those ridiculous days of a pointless standardized tests that totally jerks up the schedule and makes the rest of the day totally worthless. Anyway, kind of a nice back to ease back into it. I actually had an unexpected case of mommy wars at lunch in the teacher's lounge.. with a man. Who knew? I'm now supposed to compete with Dads? I was all good being this non-threatened Mom who would not engage with the Mommy wars and then I get sidetracked by a Dad? What? 

I was eating lunch with teacher friends and that were all asking about Austin. I told them we were all doing really well. They asked how the birth was and how bringing him home was etc. I decided a while ago, I was going to be honest with folks. I HATE it when people say things like "oh they never cry"...umm I'm calling big time BS.  Anyway, I said the first 5 weeks were so difficult...and I feel like such a haze because we slept so little. So this led to more questions and finally I just said, I think we were doing a lot wrong, we were rocking him to sleep, where the devil Dad responds with, "why did you think that would help? Would you like that?" I'm like ummm.. I didn't know what day it was, just trying my best but let that go. Then I said, "and we let him sleep in our room for a while which really did not work well for us" which douche daddy responds with "we NEVER let our kids do that, they didn't spend one night with us, we knew what we were doing". Okay, wtf? Seriously? Again, I just let it go. Finally they asked the inevitable question that I received 30 times today... Is he sleeping through the night? I said, he was but he kind of reverted back this week and I was hoping to get him back to sleeping better. I said, " he keeps getting out of his miracle blanket, because he is a little too big for it now". Another teacher asked what a miracle blanket was and he says, "it's a swaddle but he's getting out of it because she's doing it wrong, my kids never came out ours". SERIOUSLY? Who is this guy? We've never even had a hint of an issue and he's giving me all this attitude.I was so shocked I didn't say anything. Then he went on some tangent about how kids should sleep on their side and I said they were supposed to be on their back and he talks on and on about having a sleep wedge...I thought this is my chance I'll totally pounce on him. Anyone with google and a new baby knows you're not supposed to do that anymore, SO 2007... but the non-Mommy war side of me just couldn't. If I'm not going to engage in Mommy wars with a woman I'm certainly not going to with a Dad. I will though compile all of this information together and somehow hope for a perfect opportunity to use it against him, that's not wrong, right?

For Natalie's News this has been, Natalie-Corinne.