I highly recommend maternity leave.You get to forget about work for a year. Focus on your favourite faces.
Like this one. You get to have one more year with him before he goes to school like a big kid. And gets a best friend who's not you.
You get to keep a close eye on him when he's sick and not panic that you might miss a deadline for work because you're home taking care of him.
You get to teach him about sharing when his baby brother clearly doesn't know how to play Emergency with his police car.
You get to watch a bald head grow a crop of hair. A tiny body grow robust. Watch someone realize that fingers are for grabbing things. Voices can make wonderful noises.
You are free to kiss these little faces anytime you want. And you do. All the time.
You also have room in your brain to think about what needs to be done. You might not always do it. Especially if one of those little faces STILL isn't sleeping much.
But you might take a few minutes during a Sunday to browse through a trift store and see something ugly that has potential. Then during naptime you might spray paint them white and get something like this to put on an empty wall.
Of course if you thought that the kids might sleep longer, you would have taken a before picture so your readers could be really impressed with your DIY project.
You get to look at a piece of art you've had since second year university and see that it could be repurposed. A coat of chalkboard paint will allow you to create this:
Your husband might come home from work and look at it hanging in the front foyer and say without much awe, hey we lived in all those places. You get to shrug and think, at least he got it.
You get to thank God that you live somewhere that maternity leave lasts a full year. That it is understood how important your time with your babies is. For you and for them.
How wonderful that you can enjoy this experience. I took an "extended" maternity leave of 4 months with T Rex and it was not enough. So glad I have much more time with the little girl. A year would have been wonderful.
ReplyDeleteIt really sounds like you are soaking it all in. Continue to enjoy.
Simply a beautiful post!
ReplyDeleteI don't have any babies mine are all grown, but I surely could use a year of maternity leave.
ReplyDeleteI was super envious of my Canuck friends and their year of maternity leave! You are SO blessed - and I love the projects!
ReplyDeleteBTW - my SIL has taken me to Shoppers on many occasions and it is great! Our CVS is somewhat similar to it. Thanks for your comment! :)
in the 70s materity leave meant you left you job and hoped you could get another later, or if you saved up holidays, and vacation days you could take up to a month. if you had a c section you got an extra week. lucky girl to have this time with your babies.
ReplyDeleteby the way I didn't work - not until the kids were nearly 10 - then I wanted to learn to drive and buy a car, had to work. but we were all ready for a break. and I would not say my kids were better off because of a full time mom - I was maybe better off for having only one full time job.
ReplyDeleteBoth my babies were born in the summer and we planned it that way since teachers have the summer off so I could have a little extra time with each of them. For one I had 4 months and the other 5 and I loved every minute of it. Enjoy and I would have loved a year to spend with those sweet faces.
ReplyDeleteA year's maternity leave would have destroyed my practice and we couldn't afford that. But I was lucky - with my first baby three of us in the practice had babies within a few months of each other so we converted the lower floor into a nursery and hired a woman to keep the 3 babies there. I could go down between patients an nurse. And with my second I was able to go back to work just 10 hours, and then 20 hours a week and schedule so I could go nurse every couple of hours
ReplyDeleteI was with you right up to the point where you walked into the thrift shop, bought the ugly thing, then got all crafty! Maybe you could accomplish that during maternity leave or any other time in your life, but some of us don't have a creative, crafty bone in our body so look to you people with envy!
ReplyDeleteI do like it, but I'd have to have found it the way you made it. I woudl not have thought of that on my own! Terrific!
What a crafty, creative girl you are! Terrific!
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy that you have this beautiful time of discovery and fun with your two handsome boys.
You won over at Write With Pictures with a lovely contribution inspired by a picture of the ocean. Here is the link of the winning announcement: http://writewithpictures.blogspot.com/2010/12/fridays-poetry_31.html
Thanks so much Kim!! Hope your day is going well :) Hugs... - Kelly
amen sister! i wish the united states had maternity leave for a year! how wonderful! your board with the names of the places of where you had lived is really cool. that was my favorite.
ReplyDeleteYour leave is truly a blessing...fabulous ideas. :)
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