maternity leave
i guess i have never officially announced this, but it's still not too late, so: we are expecting a new family member. in fact, we are expecting it rather soon — rumpelstilzchen is due in a bit more than four weeks.
luckily, my second pregnancy was/is almost as easy as my first one. apart from quite drastic insomnia, i hardly suffer from any of the standard symptoms, and even now, after 36 weeks, i can still tie my shoe laces myself. the few things that are different, are the size and shape of my belly (to anyone who yelled "boy!" now: i attribute this to the different position of the placenta — but i am as curious as you are) and also the intensity of the kicks. the little one surely kicks a lot more and quite a bit harder than filipa used to (thus the nickname rumpelstilzchen).
filipa is quite excited about her sibling and often wants to listen to its heartbeat, feel it kick, sing lullabies, or feed it cornflakes (through my bellybutton). unfortunately, she is currently in a phase when she seems to dread the new competitor — every sleep cycle (i.e. about every 45 minutes) she wakes up, reaches over for me, cuddles my hair, and has to assure that her mum is still there for her. i thus have about 6 chances per night to not be able to fall back to sleep — quite a challenge in combination with my pregnancy-induced insomnia.
speaking of challenges and of things being different this time: i regularly have to smile when i think about my workmates helping me carry my 1.5 l water bottles up the staircase — filipa often makes me walk home with 30 kg extra: my belly (+10 kg), herself (+11 kg), her tricycle (+5 kg), and our groceries (+5 kg) — times when i appreciate my kieser workouts.
to cope with all these challenges and to fuel up before things will get really tough in about a month, i am on early maternity leave for the second week now — this makes a huge difference, especially with respect to my sleep deprivation. the idea of not going back to work until october still feels very strange though, but i am convinced that i will need the 6-month-break a lot more than last time. at the same time, i am already curious whether our current work model will also be feasible once we have two children. up to now, jonas and i both had a 60% job and spent two days each with filipa. on the one day of work-overlap, her momi and grosi took care of her (alternately). this scheme worked really well for us — filipa spent equal amounts of time with both her parents, enjoyed the special days with her grannies, and a 60% position still feels like a real job and not just like a pro forma occupation.
the challenges are not going to vanish soon — but life's great with the little frog and the tiny monkey 2.0 (hi nj).
