Ever since my husband Mike and I were dating, I’ve wanted to visit him at work. He always kept me at bay, telling me that no one else’s girlfriends/fiancees/wives have ever visited, there was nothing to see, and that he wasn’t even sure it was allowed for him to have a visitor. Because he does work at a place with high security (for example: I wasn’t even allowed to take photos of anything but his office for this post) I didn’t really question it, but just lamented to him every once in a while about how I wish I could visit.
About two years ago, we were at a company appreciation party and a fellow spouse and I started to discuss visiting our husbands at work and – low and behold – she had visited! My eyes bugged out and I turned to my husband and exclaimed, “I can come!” He looked shocked and to his credit, he genuinely didn’t know this person had visited and it wasn’t that he was trying to keep me away, he truly hadn’t thought I could come. I was working myself at that point, so it didn’t make too much difference.
Once Eli was born, I became a stay-at-home-mom. When I saw Rookie Mom’s Challenge #11 Interrupt someone’s work day, I knew it was just the kick I needed to make this visit happen.
I teamed up with another coworker’s wife and her new baby for the visit. We worked it out that we’d go to the offices on a Friday, then head out for lunch at a local restaurant the guys frequent.
I did take a wrong turn getting into his office building, but a semi-friendly security guard set me straight. Once I arrived, Eli and I both had to go through security. I even had to write down the license plate for my 11 month-old son. What the what? Soon after, we were weaving through a maze of hallways that smelled like coffee and looked like a hospital.
We visited each husband’s office, and Mike was right – there wasn’t much to see, but I loved every minute of it. There’s just something about having seen it with my own eyes that helps me to relate to him more when he’s sharing work stories and I can now picture him at meetings, going over plans and generally kickin’ butt and takin’ names. His office was full of boring, difficult-to-understand images, plans and numbers, but I did double check to be sure the photos I sent with him of Eli and I were residing in a prominent place in the office, and they were. Good job, Husband. Your office looks amazing and beautiful.
All in all, the visit took about 20 minutes and pretty quickly we were carpooling to a greasy spoon a few minutes down the road. Eli was getting pretty tired by this time and I couldn’t even get him to look or smile at the camera when I tried to snap a pic. While I don’t think he realized he got some extra time with Dad that day, but he definitely enjoyed sharing the steak, mashed potatoes and green beans off his plate, squawking and grunting around in public, and the general ooohs and ahhhs from every woman in the restaurant.
Of course Eli fell asleep on the car ride home, and the 20-minute power nap gave him enough juice to miss his afternoon nap, but it was totally worth FINALLY getting to see where my husband has been working all these years and get the visit out of my system. I honestly have no need to ever visit again (well, maybe the restaurant – it was pretty good ”¦ ) and I can’t believe it took me this long to make it happen!
[Photo credit: Laura Wifler — all rights reserved]
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