Bye bye

Tonight my mom flew home, and we're all feeling a bit miserable as a result. It has been such a blessing and privilege to have her, and earlier, my dad, to stay with us. Living in community with family is so special. Fortunately, it's only 3 weeks till we fly home, so this wasn't a goodbye, just a 'see you later'. (Coming back after our trip will be incredibly difficult though, no doubt!)

In the past few weeks Janel has grown so much! Last Monday she weighed 4.12kg (9lb 1.5oz), which is almost exactly double her birth weight! Already she feels like a proper little girl, in comparison to the tiny fragile mite she was (but that isn't saying much as she's STILL tiny!).

We think she's smiled properly once or twice, but mostly she has colic smiles. She spends a large portion of her awake periods crying, so I'm not expecting real smiles to be a feature of her life for a while yet, sadly. She's started interacting with her environment more though - she is fascinated by the geometric black and white pictures we've printed out for her and stuck up wherever I feed her. A few weeks back she learnt to make a fist and now spends her time (while feeding) occupying her mind by repeatedly grabbing at my clothes and hair. Today it seems she also discovered she has fingers, and sat staring at them moving, and touching them with the other hand, in wonder for about 15 minutes. She's learnt that I love to kiss her head, so regularly presents it for kissing, and she loves nuzzling in your neck when she's feeling miserable.

She still hates being away from people for any length of time, so is still sleeping with us a lot of the time, especially during the day (which means getting household stuff done is nigh on impossible without a second pair of hands to work or a second body for her to sleep on; I think I'll have to get into the habit of wearing the sling now that Mom is gone....). At night, once she's more or less asleep, she will tolerate being put into her cot after the midnight and 3am feeds (assuming that she doesn't have a colic fit), but by the 6am feed she wants to be with people again.

I've started trying to get her into some sort of routine, with a feed followed by a bath followed by sleep, but we haven't been able to get that to happen at the same time every night: our lives just aren't that predictable. (I guess they will have to become so shortly unless we want an insecure child on our hands.)

She's finally outgrown her first batch of clothes, which I'll keep in preparation for the next one (?!?!). Fortunately, we've got enough clothes to last her another 3 months (assuming she grows at the same rate and not faster), but after that we'll have to start buying clothes for her again. I've already bought her 2 dresses in preparation for going home, and a swim nappy (given that it's late summer there) to prevent accidents (although I suspect the pool water will be too cold for her - maybe we should invest in a little wetsuit for her?). The summer range of baby clothes is just hitting the stores in the UK now, so hopefully I'll be able to buy a few more items (like a sun hat!!) before we leave. (She hates wearing hats though, so who knows whether it will be used at all.)

It's hard to believe I'm half-way through my maternity leave, and in that just 3 short months I'm probably going to have to leave her with someone else during the day. I'm not sure I want to do that, so the decision about when to return to work is proving a difficult one to make. (I have a contractual obligation to return to work for 13 weeks full time, or pro rata part time.) Longer term I think I'd like to return part-time, but right now I feel that my little one needs me more and she has to be my priority.... aaaahhhh!! Decisions, decisions! Hopefully God will make it clear to us what we should do, and when. Till then, I'm looking forward to going home, seeing the rest of our large clan, and seeing some sun!