Managing

The daycare at work seems to be seeing the light of the day at last! But I am not hoping yet. These guys have gone and worked themselves up to make it one of the best (if not THE best) daycares in Bangalore and so in the process, will be importing teachers from Singapore for the initial few months, till they can hire local talent, and those few months, they will take in only 10 kids. 10 kids! I ask you, when there is 300 employee registrations. If I get the son in, I will be lucky I suppose.

So here is a post dedicated to the thought of having a daycare ;)

"How are you managing?"

This is usually the first (or one of the first few) questions I get asked when I meet people. They mean, baby, house-hold chores and a full time job.

Luckily things fell in place for me. I was in a comfortable position at work where I could work from home so long as I showed engagement and progress. I was not new to the platform I was working on, I hanged around long enough. Plus Cisco that way is a blessing. It has never demanded that I come to work so long as I delivered on what I signed up for :) Thanks to the culture, the management is understanding and doesn't push to see my face every day, every week :)

The son, he is a blessing too. He is usually well-behaved. I won't say any more for fear of getting jinxed.

So I had to get back from maternity leave in January. I was alone at home with the baby, and a full-time maid. The baby was not rolling over yet, he was still solely on mom's milk and things were a breeze (now it feels like breeze, then I used to be a nervous wreck ;) ). We managed well for a month. Then the full-time maid left to get married and somehow I found a steady maid, two to three maids later.

Then I had to get back to work. I was getting my reports back and I had to go to work at least to meet my team. So I used to go twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, 9AM to 12 PM, come back by 12.30 and the husband used to leave for work at 12.30. It was like a relay race with the baton passing over the gate at 12.30 in the afternoon, give or take an hour;)

Then the husband started to get busy. At work. Luckily in-laws arrived. Now I still follow the same routine, but the husband leaves as soon as he showers and readies the baby for his morning nap routine, doesn't have to wait for me to get back. I give the baby his breakfast and leave after cooking and packing boxes etc and Subhash takes care of the bath and sleep routine. And now that the little guy is all mobile, crawling all over the house (now he knows his way around the house, how to get to the living room, where is his bedroom, where is the TV and all that), I really think it would be a nightmare if I had to work from home with him alone without any kind of support, like I was doing earlier. Subhash's parents have been a blessing. They manage to keep him engaged and he plays with them, which gives me some much needed breaks during the day to get some serious work done.


So, that is that. So far, so good ;)