The midway point of maternity leave

I've reached the midway point of my maternity leave and it's a milestone I've met with feelings of sadness.

I love my job and the plan was always to return in the New Year - a plan we prepared before we decided to have a baby, as we wanted to know what we would have to do to have enough money for everything we would need.

But now that baby isn't a hypothetical concept, it's Ethan, my beautiful baby boy who spends his days currently smiling and blowing raspberries at me, it's not quite so straightforward.

We've just chosen a nursery and confirmed his place for January so it's all official - I will be a working mum and Ethan will have full time childcare four days a week. They say it's always harder for the parents than the children when the time comes to sack the day time TV and partake in meetings and adult conversation again every day and I'm sure they're right.

I do believe that it's important for children to be around other children as much as possible from as early on as possible and the nursery we have chosen is bright, friendly and 'outstanding' according to Ofsted.

All of this helps but it still has hit me hard to know that I have four and a half months left with my little one where I am his only hug giver, bottle provider and play mate during weekdays. 

As I said a couple of weeks ago, I want to make the most of this precious time together as we will never have it again. So, thoughts of work are being pushed to the very back of my mind now and the most taxing thing I'll be thinking of in the coming weeks is learning the words to nursery rhymes as my knowledge is really poor in this area!