You brighten my life

I always find it interesting how we interact with people every day and we barely know them at all. Additionally, I have two children and this is a major part of my life that the people I work with never see and may not even know about. It is nice as a mother to be know for something other than being a mother and cleaning and cooking. But in the end, mothering is my job and I value it more than anything else.
Which brings me to my utter excitement to meld my two worlds and bring my daughter to work with me last week. She hung out with me from about 8:30 to almost 3:30 when I left early after I could see she was getting tired. I loved having her there with me and she brightened my day, my co-worker's day and the resident's day. The recreation department had a "children's fashion show / staff talent show" and that was my excuse to bring her in. As far as the fashion show, her and I just walked down a row of wheelchairs while all the old ladies looked at us and clapped. That one short walk was enough for me, but Gabriella seemed to be getting into it and wanted to walk down again. She was excited to go to work with me and the girly-ness in her was excited about the fashion show. Although after our walk-down and we were watching the rest of the very simple, amateur "show" Gabby asked me, "mama where is the show"? and I told her "This is the show". I think she had grander expectations.
All in all, I had a great day with her and I loved being able to share a big part of my life with my friends at work and to show Gabriella where I go when I leave her all day. It meant alot to me, and it would be nice if bosses were in favor of taking children to work, or if there were more excuses for me to bring her again. (Marco is a bit too young and would have needed a nap in the middle of the day so he wouldn't work out, but I'd love to take him in a year or two as well).
I kept one of the paintings she made me when we were in one of my meetings and taped a picture of her to it and stuck it on the wall of my office. I wrote on the paper, "You brighten my life".