I quit!

I finally went to see my boss today to tell her I'm not coming back to work. She's a very cool boss, which is one of the reasons it was so hard to quit. She was surprised (I think she may have even used the f-word, and with a baby sleeping nearby!), but she recovered quickly and was more than open to my request to write from home on a freelance basis. She even gave me two assignments before I left. Hurray!!!! Plus I get to keep writing my Yard Dirt column and the blog that goes along with it. I'm not sure how much of a budget she actually has to pay me for such things, but she doesn't seem to think it's a problem.

I was nervous about bringing Molly along for such an important meeting but she was great. We had an excellent night last night (Molly slept for 8 hours!!! -- 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.), and then she took her morning nap right on schedule. She woke up just as it was time to leave and hardly cried at all in the car. She was wide awake and alert when we got to the office and happy to let everybody pass her around and cuddle her. Then she sat quietly in my arms as I cleaned up my desk and indulged in office gossip for way too long. It felt so much like the pre-baby days that it was surreal to nurse her on the couch in the ladies room and change her diaper there. It was strange to be in my work clothes and surrounded by people who know me in that context and to be wiping my baby's bottom ... especially strange because I realized I have no problem with my new job description.

And now we're home and Molly's back to being her silly self, after a few days of unexplained fussiness. I've been telling her all about how I just broke up with my job for her so we can play together every day. I think she's pretty happy about that -- or maybe it's just the clean diaper. It's so hard to tell.