Catch Up

I had this vision that I'd be winding down in the run up to going on maternity leave mid-April but instead I am running around like a blue arsed fly. It's at times like this when I realise that it pays to be one of those anal retentive organised people because the next 8 weeks till the bambino arrives (that's if she doesn't arrive early) are going to be so hectic.

I have 4 weeks left of work so I have lots of meetings to go to (I take the piss about the amount of internal meetings I attend but I actually have lots of external ones too), I need to get up to date with all of my accounts, do handovers and clear my backlog of things that I always intend to do but haven't got around to, otherwise known as a To-Do List.

I've started organising my baby registry list but haven't remembered to sort out the guestlist, but I am meeting with a couple of friends at the weekend and hopefully it can all get sorted. I have had moments where I have gotten pissy about this whole baby shower mallarky. I know it's all well intentioned but combined with the shitload of things I have to do, it feels like Yet Another Thing. When I agreed to one, I just didn't think about what I would need to do in order for it to happen and I wish I had because I would have been more organised... Ah coulda, woulda, shoula....

After thinking that we had made up our minds about our pushchair, I have backtracked and now have to spend almost every day reading reviews and product tests to try to get to grips with what is out there. It is truly mind boggling and it's clear that people buy different pushchairs for different reasons, regardless of whether it's considered to be technically good or sh*t. Our original choice, the Quinny Buzz, we love the look and feel of, but in hindsight there are some potential practicality issues and on this occasion, size does matter. Not only will I be a user of public transport, but we are off to the US at the end of August and need to feel like we can travel with a relatively light pushchair and not have to weigh ourselves down. Some people love the Quinny Buzz, others hate it, and I'm torn on elements of it. But for something that costs almost £500 if you buy the whole frigging lot, I need to love it...

We've changed hospitals as we liked the very positive things that were said about the new place, plus we even brought more baby clothes today. We had a day off and popped up to Peter Jones in Knightsbridge and got lots of basic white stuff for the bambino's arrival. Due to the paranoia about the possibility of the bambino being a boy, we have stuck with neutral stuff.

On top of all of this, we are researching stuff for the new house, dealing with the paperwork and headaches of moving, trying to pack up stuff in the flat so it doesn't creep up on us, decluttering yet again for the charity shop, and trying to ensure that we spend quality time together. Oh and of course I am trying to blog, plus tooling around with a few web projects. Oh and how could I forget reading about breastfeeding and birthplans....

Everyday I feel different about the breastfeeding - some days confident, but since starting to read about it, more often than not, anxious...but that's whole other post.

8 weeks to go.....scary flipping stuff!