Take Your Child To Work Day

Thursday was national Take Your Child to Work Day.  My company has actually participated in this for a number of years but this is the first year that I got to bring Austen since the minimum age requirement is 6.

Of course we had to tell Peyton that he was going to the doctor to get shots so she wouldn't want to go too. She's used to Austen going to school with her so the fact that Austen went with me and Peyton went with her dad to go to school, was not lost on her.  I actually thought we had prepared her sufficiently but just as Austen and I were almost out the door, she started crying. Austen and I felt bad but we were excited for our day ahead.

I asked Austen if he wanted to take the bus to work. He left it up to me so we drove.  When we entered my building, security greeted him by name and gave him two bags of chocolate covered pretzel sticks - one for him and one for his sister.  We went up to my office and got settled before we started on some work (signing and addressing cards for me and stamping and sealing for Austen!). We then had a breakfast for all the kids who came to work with their parents that day.

After that, Austen and I went on a tour. I introduced him to a lot of people or rather he introduced himself by saying, " Hi, I'm Austen, I'm 6." He grew tired of this after the first 30 people or so, so we took a break and went back to my office so Austen could write and draw about his morning so far.

At 11 a.m., Austen and the rest of the kids participated in a mini-medical school put on by my staff.  They learned about their bones, their organs, germs, nutrition, etc. He got a workbook and did great matching up the instruments to the correct body part.

After mini-medical school, it was time for lunch. Austen was starved, so we went out to lunch together. It was then that I realized how exhausted I was - being a mom and working all at the same time at work! When we got back, I had a few meetings and Austen had to complete his questionnaire for the day asking him what he wanted to be when he grew up (a basketball player) and what was the most surprising thing about his mom's work (all the people) as well as the most fun thing about today (lunch).

At the end of the day, all the kids got together to pose for a photo and with only an hour left, Austen was asking if it was time to go pick up Peyton from school yet. I knew he was tired and ready to go home. I let him play on the iPad while I wrapped up a few last minute tasks and then we ended our first official Take Your Child to Work Day. I was exhausted but glad Austen and I had some good bonding time together.