If you should find yourself able to take a six month leave from your job, be aware that when you return, you just might feel like a celebrity. Not that I have any idea what it feels like to be famous, I’m just guessing. My first day back, I was lavished with attention, so I was glad I’d seen my hairdresser, that I took a little time to dab on some of my amazing eye wrinkle reducing cream and to apply mascara. About the cream- it is for real! One of my co-workers told me I looked younger. As in younger than when she last saw me, which was before I had a baby. As in better now than when I took sleeping seven to eight hours straight for granted.  Any doubts I may have had regarding the ridiculously high price of the stuff have officially been laid to rest. On my first day back I also wore my favorite scrub top, which is bright pink with lime green piping. I was feeling like a watermelon and loving it.

Anyway, I got to work, and everyone was like “How ARE you?” and “We missed you!!” and “Do you have pictures of your baby!?” and just generally making a fuss over me, so I was glad I took the extra time for the mascara and the anti-aging eye cream. Like, when you go out for your birthday and you try to look extra cute because you’re the birthday girl… It was kind of like that. Only no presents. Or  drinks. Or cake. Ok maybe it doesn’t sound that great, but it was. If you don’t appreciate your job, I strongly encourage you to have a baby, spend nearly every waking moment with said baby, then return to work for a day. I don’t care how awesome your baby is. I can almost 100% guarantee your job satisfaction rating will have skyrocketed. And all you had to do was get knocked up! You can thank me later.

So, back to cake. Can we talk about that, since we’re on the topic? Before I was pregnant, I never had dessert at the hospital cafeteria. And by never, I mean not ever, no exceptions. I never even considered it. Was I tempted? Of course. But if I had to have something chocolatey, I would buy a few handfuls of overpriced M&M’s (which are sold by the ounce), and share them with the whole table. But did I ever treat myself to a piece of pie with a cup of coffee? The possibility of experiencing such joy during the workday never even occurred to me. That is, until I was pregnant. Even though I thought it was 100% insane when my midwife’s assistant told me to eat 3000 calories a day (you read that right), and even though I nodded to her face and privately vowed I would do no such thing, I appreciated her advice whenever I passed the dessert area at work. Because obviously a growing life needs calories.

Just thinking about it makes me want to be pregnant again. Because, ladies? All the stuff you hear about how nursing makes you so skinny? My advice would be to hold on a minute before you rush out and buy Cinnabons by the case at Costco. Not that I haven’t shed a lot of weight, I have. Actually I am just 2 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight. (And this is how I feel about that). But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that I haven’t experienced the intense, non-stop hunger that every nursing mom has promised I would feel.  I just eat like a normal person, plus a little ramekin of ice cream most nights. Which is fine. I know I shouldn’t complain. It’s just that I was feeling nostalgic about the past, back when I was ironman traning and I could eat seconds of everything and still have room for thirds plus dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse, and I hoped to relive some of that without actually having train 15-20 hours a week.

But I digress… The point is, I was at work, I wasn’t pregnant anymore, and I was loving life in my watermelon hued scrub top, and then I saw the coconut cream pie (my FAVE) in the hospital cafeteria. And my day, which had up to then, had been carefree was suddenly fraught with turmoil. To eat the pie or not to eat the pie? What would you have done??  On the one hand, coconut cream pie is my FAVE. I know I already said it, but I love it so much, it bears repeating. With a cup of the surprisingly good hospital cafeteria coffee? Simply divine. On the other hand, I still have some pounds to lose, and just so you know, 2 pounds is more than you think when you’re only five feet tall. Additionally, there exists the distinct possibility that one slice of pie would lead me down the road of Dessert Every Time I Work. It’s a slippery slope.

I won’t leave you in suspense. I said no thanks to the pie. And managed to have an afternoon that was just as pleasant as my morning, in spite of it. Or perhaps because of it.