Today, Tuesday, Jan. 5, is my first official day as a working mom.

It was a strange thing walking out the door for the first time without my daughter, who is just shy of seven weeks old as I write this, to get into my car and go back to work.

Last Friday we had dinner with my husband’s parents as well as his my brother-in-law, David and his wife, Melanie.

When I said I’d be going back to work this week, Mel said, “Are you excited?”

I told her that I was torn.

Part of me was happy to get back to work, to get back out in the community, to start talking to people again about stories and especially to start writing again.

Considering where I was this time last year, ready to leave newspapers entirely, this is a significant turnaround for me.

Given all the awesome changes we’ve been through here at the Covington/Maple Valley Reporter since last February, there is no way I could leave this newspaper now, there’s just been too many great things we’ve done and too much potential unfulfilled.

It hasn’t been easy all the time, but, the challenge is one of the things that gets me out of bed in the morning and keeps me coming to work.

Dennis Box, my tireless editor and teammate here, spoke to me last week about what we can do to make this paper even better heading into our second year working together.

I’m really looking forward to tackling that challenge.

But, of course, I miss my little girl.

Lyla was born Nov. 18.

If you think about it, up until this morning, she was with me 24/7 from the moment she was conceived sometime at the end of February 2009. That’s nearly a year she’s been with me every minute.

Granted I didn’t know I was pregnant until early May, but that’s still seven months and change.

Part of me wishes I could stay home and be just a full-time mom, but financially it’s not in the cards.

And until we brought Lyla home from the hospital, the idea of being a stay at home mom seemed silly, why would I give up my career?

Early on in the pregnancy, I mentioned the idea of quitting my job to my husband, who said something about how he couldn’t see me giving up my job.

At the time I didn’t see any reason to discuss it because it made sense. Of course I would continue working, I’m a writer, I’m a journalist. It’s what I do, it’s a big part of who I am as a person.

Obviously, I thought to myself, I can find a way to balance both and I will because I love my work. Besides, I am a strong, empowered woman who can be a mom and have a career.

That and I need the structure of going to work daily. Well, I just need structure, even when I was on maternity leave I created to do lists almost every day after the first week off.

Between you and me, I also think my husband doesn’t like it if I have too much free time to myself at home, there’s too much potential for me to get in trouble.

So, here I am, back at work.

This week I’m going to regain my bearings, with the next couple days set aside for getting out the print edition, then planning the next few issues as well as evaluating with Dennis our long term goals for the paper and diving head-first into stories that need to be done.

I will also continue to blog about life with Lyla on the newspaper’s Web site, my own little corner of the Internet called Baby Babble, found at blogs.covingtonreporter.com/babybabble.

Meanwhile, my mind is on Lyla, who is hanging out with my husband for a few weeks while he’s off from work recovering from the holiday season since he works in retail store management. No better way than to spend his time bonding with his baby girl, right?

Back to work, balancing my thoughts between family and the job.

Here’s to all you working moms out there as I join your ranks.