So, I quit my job. Don't get too excited yet, though--I got another one. It turns out I will be working in my neighborhood, about 100 yards from my house.

I will still need day care, but it will be a twenty minute walk from my house instead of an hour commute via the subway. I will be as close to my son as I could possibly be without having him at home with me.

Although my druthers would be to stay at home with the baby I know that is not a real possibility. I also knew that returning to my former employer's was out of the question, for a number of reasons I won't bore you with here.

So I called them and resigned. Last week I went in to get my few things from the office I'd haunted for nearly three years. And I took the baby with me.

I wanted everyone to have the opportunity to meet him, and for my boss to see the reason I just couldn't come back to work, which was so far away from him.

The experience was more like breaking up with an old boyfriend than anything else. When I went to get my things it was like going back to his place to get my stuff, only in this scenario I was getting my stapler instead of my toothbrush.

Emotions were high and tension was thick, as they tend to be with most break ups. It didn't help matters that I was leaving the 'boyfriend' for another 'boyfriend.'

The new 'boyfriend' was so much more understanding, though, so much more convenient. In short, as far as boyfriends go, the new one was a dream come true--this boyfriend understood about my commitment to my son and was willing to work with me to make sure both the baby and I were happy.

To make matters worse, as I was trying to gather up my things--which had been conveniently placed on the table in my office--the baby decided to have a complete and total meltdown. Total. Meltdown. It was unlike anything I've ever witnessed.

Even when kiddo got his shots he didn't lose it the way he did at the office. It was as if--and the more I think about it the more I am sure this is true--he could sense all the tension. His reaction to that tension was normal for a baby, but not allowable in adults. Can you imagine how things would be if we were allowed to bawl?

My husband did his darnedest to run interference while I tried to figure out what I wanted to keep and what was up for grabs or to be sent to the trash. Ultimately we were not able to tame the beast and ended up hightailing it out of there. It was just as well--the whole experience was just so awkward, I'm relieved it's over.

I'm sure everyone in my office thinks my son is a hellion now instead of the angle who got me to take another job closer to him just so I could be within a stone's throw should anything happen. Even if they did think he was an angel--he certainly started out that way before all the extra attention and tension got to him--they still wouldn't fully understand my situation.

That corporate, for-profit 'boyfriend' understands the bottom line and money and little else. Looking at my office after all these months, uninhabited except for my things, I could scarcely remember being in it, working there.

It was as if I'd become a whole new person reviewing the world of someone else. In a way, I had--er, did. Motherhood changes you. That's no secret, but exactly how it changes you is different for every woman. For me, motherhood showed me what was a priority in life: my son, my family. Not the bottom line.