The start of the end of maternity leave

Just over 9 months ago I said goodbye to my students and colleagues, packed up my classroom, and carried my beautiful gifts home. At 36 weeks pregnant I was more than ready to finish work, and nervously awaiting the arrival of our precious Turner syndrome babe. All these months on, I'm now getting ready to return to work. What a roller coaster 9 months! I'll certainly be returning a changed woman.

A part time return 

Yesterday I had my first proper day at work in 9 months. I say proper day, but what I mean is more of a settling in day. A day of sewing in fact, with some old and new students. It was fantastic to be warmly greeted by staff and children alike, and knowing that G was at home with daddy meant that I had no feelings of anxiety. I have 4 more settling in days between now and Christmas, with a view to make a full (or should I say part time) return come January.

Daddy day!

As G is still to have further settling in days with the childminder, Tim took the day off work yesterday to look after her. Can you believe it was his FIRST ever time looking after her for more than an hour?! He has joked many a time about me not having the house clean or dinner on the table when he returned from a hard days work, so what would I be returning to? Well, a happy baby, a roast chicken dinner prepared, and washing up done. A clean house I did not find, but let's face it, a seasoned pro like myself doesn't have time to clean so I let home off. He had a super day, and I'm so pleased that daddy and grace were able to have some bonding time. He even introduced her to a new food-tuna sandwiches!

Out of hours fun

Yep, you guessed it, ears AGAIN. Within 48 hours of finishing her antibiotics, G had dramatically turned. She was back to hours of screaming, yanking her ears, refusing milk and food, and staying awake all night. Thankfully yet again we had a super service from 111 and had an appointment scheduled with the out of hours GP within two hours. It took less than a minute to confirm what we already knew, and we left clutching yet another prescription. I won't even say that I hope this is the last of it. It won't be!

In other news...

*We saw the dietician today to try and make sense of the long and bizarre list of foods that aggrevate G, and left none the wiser. Our dietician is going to liaise with our paediatrician to possibly look into further testing regarding foods/allergies/intolerances, though it may just be that G has a ridiculously sensitive stomach and bowels.

*G is spending more and more time with the childminder and whilst she isn't 100% happy, she didn't scream for all of the hour that I left her! As I've mentioned before, we're really lucky that our childminder is a close family friend of my family, so we know that she will be very well looked after.

* G had her barium swallow test just over a week ago. It was a traumatic experience for her. I don't mean in the sense that it hurt her, but she had to be held down and virtually force fed a thick mixture which went everywhere and even resulted in her wetting herself so badly that it covered the x ray table. Oops! Still, it needed to be done. Awaiting results.

So, December is fast approaching and we are super excited about our first Christmas with Grace. We've even managed to shoe horn a few early decorations into the house, for Grace's sake of course!