First things

First Sinterklaas gift.

First muts.

First bear hug.

Back to work - it's all relative

So, Maternity leave is now officially over. And Liam has entered a new phase, one in which he is able to entertain himself for a while, in which he sleeps during the day (sometimes a lot!) and where he is starting to be able to roll over, grab things, and jealously watch other people eating.
For the first few months of his existance, Liam would rule the day and me with it. And I had no clue whatsoever of what was to come. The result of this was that I spent hours feeding, cleaning, and playing with him, but had no time to eat, dress, buy groceries or any other household task myself. Taking a shower or eating a sandwich became races against time, and attempts to perform vital household tasks like these simultaneously often ended in small disasters. Try carrying laundy downstairs AND drinking a cup of coffee. Or calling your mom AND mopping the floor. Whoever said that women can do more than one thing at a time never meant to include new mothers in the group.


That said, I have also noticed that post-baby I CAN do lots of things within a much shorter time span than I did before. Within an hour I am now able to buy groceries, do my laundy, fill the dish washer, and have lunch. This used to take me Saturdays. Making decisions about minor issues are also much easier. Who cares what I eat on Monday or which toilet paper is best; I have a million things to do, so just pick something! And that's not the only area where things a put into a new perspective. It's been really hard to read a newspaper these days. I simply don't care anymore about half of what's in it. And the other half worries me way too much to read. Television has changed as well. I have to admit I like easy entertainment now, instead of news magazines or serious movies. I want it light, short, preferably funny, and no risk of seeing tragedy, especially no child-related tragedy.

The first few days back at work were quite a shock. First of all, I was already exhausted by the time I got there. Two hours of frantically running around the house had been tiring enough to go right back to my bed. I need to get up, shower, dress, and eat. Liam needs to get up, get fed, washed. Cats need to get fed and be put outside for the day. Two bottles of milk need to be prepared and put in a cooler. Then we both have to get into our coats and we have to make our way to the day care center, where we have a short talk with the day care lady, fill up the diaper supply and say goodbye. Then I have to get to work. Sounds easy, but Oh.My.God. I used to get up and go to work. Now I work before I go to work.

The second problem with work was actually gathering enough to do for a day. To me, it seemed like everything there was working out fine without me, so wouldn't it be best for me to just make myself scarse? Luckily (?), that problem vanished within a short time span.

Then I found out that things that used to wind me up no longer have any big effect on me. Whenever someone came to me with a problem, I thought to myself: 'who cares?'. There weren't any problems that looked like real problems to me. You want to talk about the small dent in the wall? Why not just leave it there, nobody will really notice. You worry about that graph not being entirely useful for its purpose? Well, change what you want, because I'm not using it anyway. You want to talk about that teacher that won't show up when you want him to? Hey, there are kids starving in Africe, do you really want me to think about something trivial like that?

Now that I'm well into my third week back, I am so thankful to myself for not saying any of those thoughts out loud, because by now I'm starting to get riled up again for anything Check5. Which is probably best for everyone concerned.

By the time I get to pick up Liam at the end of the day, it feels like I had to miss him for way too long. I usually find him sleeping or staring at some kind of toy floating above him. He loves that. Whenever he sees me, he smiles. And then we make our way home, where he plays with another toy-floating-device and I rush to get some form of dinner ready, to get all the bottles ready for the next day, feed the cats, make the bed, empty the dish washer, clean up the living room (that I forgot to do the night before), and get into my pj's. When dinner's ready, Liam always decides he wants to eat first, so I feed him, then reheat dinner, and eat (you would think there'd be a better order to do chores in, but trust me - there isn't). It takes about 2 hours to get into a slower gear. Then we play. And we laugh. And sing. And I watch him, until it's time to get Liam into his pyjamas, get to bed for his last feeding and our last cuddle of the day. We listen to Nijntje's song as I put him to bed. He smiles, then yawns, then sleeps. And then I sleep. Until Liam tells me to do it all over again. Happily.