An American in Provence: mai 2014

mardi 6 mai 2014

All good things

Come to an end.

My maternity leave is ending and I return to work on Monday.

Alain will then take his two weeks of paternity leave, then we hand her over to the nounou across the street, for the petty sum of 1000€ a month. Aiee! Nobody ever said having kids made good financial sense.

I have tried to write many times in the past four months, but each time have been unable to organize my thoughts due to a baby needing to be taken care of, fatigue, or just general daze.

We stayed in the hospital for eight days because S. was being treated for jaundice in the néonatal unit. I spent most of my time watching her sleep and thinking, hey this motherhood thing is a piece of cake! Nowhere near as hard as everyone makes it out to be!

(As opposed to now: Hey little girl. Aren't you very very sleepy? Don't you want to take a nice long nap so mommy can take a shower, take a nap, or generally do something non baby related?)

The return home was quite an adjustment, as to be expected. The first couple of weeks, I slept in our extra bedroom next to her crib, as she was usually waking up three times a night, and I didn't want to have to keep climbing up and down the ladder to our mezzanine bed.

After about a month, My parents came for a month, but didn't stay with us. They rented a 'maisonette' about ten minutes walk away. We spent most days hanging out at our apartment, watching S. sleep, holding her, feeding her, changing her.

Easter was spent with Alain's family, and then mom and dad returned home.

She started sleeping through the night a little after that, a bit over two months old.

All in all, she is a happy baby. She now can roll over, lift her head and torso up off the floor, make noise, smile, grab things, and is starting to laugh. She has discovered her fingers, and thinks they are the best things in the whole world.

Alain speaks to her in French, and I speak to her in English, but we haven't yet decided on mommy/maman daddy/papa. I don't like 'maman' but mommy sounds like mami (grandma) in French.

In May we took her to Alain's and my work places to show her off, and everyone was impressed with how calm and happy she was, didn't complain even after being passed around from person to person.

I wish I could post some pictures, but I promised not too. I think she looks a lot like the baby below, only with brown hair and brown eyes.

My mother-in-law showed us some pictures of her as a baby, and S. looks very much like her so far.

So there you have it. All in all, I am happy to have had almost four months off, but I wonder whether it makes returning to work harder. We shall see.

Libellés : S. |

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An American in Provence

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