Maternity Leave, Ended

Wow, this is the longest blog break that ever happened to me. I have been busy, really busy...

I have returned to work 2 weeks back. Well, my maternity leave ended long time ago but I took additional 2 weeks off from my previous accumulated time off that I had not had a chance to claim. I am now learning to live with new schedule, juggling between work loads and kids and sleep deprive…

When I gave birth to Charlotte, I took everything personally. I did everything for the baby myself, even during the confinement month. It was very very stressful and tiring. This time round, lesson learned. I took the opportunity to rest as much as I could. While having confinement helpers around during the first month I let her managed every for the baby, including the night feeding. I'm still breastfeeding, but with EBM I left the feeding job to her and trust that she is able to do the job that she is paid for. I did not have to worry about Charlotte too because my mother was around to help out and to take care of her. So, confinement month was rather enjoyable this time, except the ridiculous confinement rules that I had to follow...

After the first month, most "helpers" had left but luckily we have found a baby sitter to take care of Abby. I decided to start sending Abby to her (bad mommy, I know) because I needed the time to settle some overdue errands, get quiet time of my own, rest and rejuvenate before returning to work. Also, I need to start practicing the morning routine, that is getting myself ready for office, that includes expressing breast milk, feed and change Abby, get Charlotte ready for school, and not late for work and school. I could almost imagine the chaotic situation especially when Pat is out of town. So, by starting this routine while I'm still on maternity leave I could practice and set the schedule early without having to run into morning madness (although I still think that morning madness would still happens, hopefully it will be less frequent and in a smaller scale).

It is also a good thing that I am sending Abby to sitter, I could use the time to do marketing every morning after sending both girls off, get paperwork filed, bills paid, did some exercise, facial, hair cut and most importantly, planned and get things organized. Besides, Abby is starting to recognize faces and places. Getting her familiarized with her baby sitter early hopefully will minimize the separation anxiety that I used to deal with Charlotte when leaving her with her grandma in the morning.

Other than enjoying having a little quality time of my own, I managed to accomplish a small home improvement project. We never completely furnished our rooms for this current house that we have been staying for more than 8 years now. The master bedroom was the only room that we furnished, leaving the other 3 bedrooms and family hall upstairs "free style". Charlotte is still sleeping in our room, on our king + super single bed and we didn't really bother of furnishing the other rooms until Abigail's arrival. The baby stuff and everything else seem overflowing and running out of storage. So I engaged an ID company and my medium scale home improvement project was completed right before I return to work.

I think I had fully utilized my maternity leave. I am now embarking on another new chapter of life. I know it will be challenging, but blessed.

Stay tuned for my next update.