Oh that? That's just spit up...

Well, Thursday marked my return to the adult world as I taught my first class in nearly a year. In the days leading up to reentry, my husband warned me that it would be hard, almost unbearable, to leave Suttie for several hours and then come home to find him asleep, knowing that I had missed so much of his day. But, for the six thousand, two hundred, and eighty-third time, my husband was wrong.

The plan was for me to drop Suttie off at my mother-in-law’s house around 3:30 pm so that I could get to school early enough to make copies and, more importantly, so that I could take a few moments to psych myself up for a room full of skeptical twenty-somethings. As so often happens, we were running late – Suttie picked an inopportune moment to test the durability of his diaper, so by the time I got him and all of his gear loaded up, I only had a few seconds to toss him wildly into his grandmother’s waiting arms before I had to get back on the road.

But once I entered my office, I discovered something wonderful. I was in a room that was entirely quiet. There was no pile of laundry on the floor, no dirty bottles in the sink, no hard plastic teething toys laying around for me to trip on or jump over. No cries for food or clean diapers or attention. Just me, my thoughts, and a dilapidated poster of van Gogh’s Starry Night. And while I love my son and all the signs of his existence, I’m not ashamed to say that I breathed a sigh of relief and gratitude. In that space, I was more Kate than Mommy, more teacher than parent, and it was a fantastic feeling.

And yes, I did miss him, but I was glad for the opportunity to miss him. It was easy to leave, to teach, to be away, knowing that when I got home I would appreciate him more – and perhaps he would appreciate me more – because of the absence, not in spite of it. So, it seems that I’m in the process of merging my worlds. I work on lectures at home while watching Baby Einstein, trying hard not to incorporate a lesson with puppets, and I show up to teach in clothes with baby slobber on the shoulder carrying a bag that contains a stuffed raccoon and at least one pacifier. And I show my class pictures of my son because he’s the most important part of my world, but they’re also taking up prime real estate, and I want them to know it.