It’s here.  The dreaded transition from lazy mornings in bed with baby to the daily grind of working, pumping, and getting dressed before noon.

I knew it was coming and savored the summer full of baby and toddler time, but it doesn’t make this shift back to work any easier.  My baby won’t take her bottle and has spent hours screaming in other people’s arms only to be instantly calmed when I arrive home.  While that sounds nice for my ego, it’s hard to see that the adjustment seems just as hard for her as it is for me.  I’ve taken her to work this week since our students won’t arrive until next Tuesday so I get a few more opportunities to nurse her and avoid pumping for a bit longer, but soon we’ll be hitting the reality of a  work week without my baby.

The good news is that I’ve had the summer off as a teacher and managed to work out a plan to take one day of each week off during the school year instead of using up my maternity leave all in one chunk.  It should help with my milk supply and my stress level.  Also, I have a wonderful student teacher who will be taking on several of my classes for the next few months.  Still, there’s no denying the fact that leaving my baby, even in the very capable hands of my stay at home husband, is just plain hard.

If you’ve transitioned back into the career world, how did you handle it?  Do you have tips for overcoming that longing to hold your baby in your arms while you’re in the middle of your professional life?

This week’s edition of We are THAT Family’s Works for Me Wednesday is the “Organizing Edition.” Now, I got a bit confused last month and posted about organizing kids’ clothes when I should have been posting a back-to-school tip. I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and re-run this post about organizing your recyclables–just in time for back to school!

A couple weeks ago I saw a brightly-painted truck driving around my Portland neighborhood with the word “SCRAP” scrawled on the side.  I later learned this was a part of Portland’s School and Community Resource Action Project.  They collect everything from buttons, wrapping paper, yarn, and paper towel tubes and distribute it to schools to use as art supplies.  I wrote a post about recycling the contents of my basement many months ago.  Some of the things we went to great lengths to recycle (such as CD jewel cases) could have been donated to this organization–and reusing is always better than recycling.

Even if your community doesn’t have a program like SCRAP, you could collect some items destined to the trashcan and donate them to a local school.  I remember hoarding toilet paper tubes and egg cartons after my third grade teacher specifically requested them as art project donations.

Collecting your clean, “art-project worthy” garbage to donate to a school can be especially eco-friendly if you don’t have much of a recycling program in your town.  I know that some parts of the country still don’t recycle magazines or other paper products, let alone ribbons, rubber bands, or useless CDs.  Here’s just a brief list of some of the items SCRAP collects, to give you an idea of what you might reserve from your trash pile:

• Magazines
• Old and new calendars
• Tissue Paper
• Cardboard tubes
• Foam core
• Frames
• Staples
• Paper clips
• Bottle caps
• Altoid tins
• Small blocks and boards
• Tennis balls
• Stickers
• Bubble wrap

Portlanders can check out SCRAP’s website to see which items are in demand and what they have too much of.  Non-Portlanders could try calling schools and leaving a message about the trash-I mean “art supplies” and “science experiment materials”-you’re willing to donate.  If you’re really ambitious, you could even try organizing a SCRAP-like program for your own local schools. 

Giving away the contents of my garbage pail instead of sending it to a landfill always works for me.  Have you successfully recycled household detritus by donating it to schools?  Please post a comment and let us know how it worked for you.