maternity leave--second time around

I am back. Maternity leave has officially begun for baby #2. I had every intention of keeping my blog going while back at work but between full time work and spending time with my son... life got in the way.

I feel like the start of this maternity leave is going quite well and that I have learned from my past experiences.

The first thing is that I have given myself some time before the baby is due. Last time I wanted to work right up until my due date. Well, baby came early and I never had time to prepare things. This time, I feel like I may have overdone it a little bit and given myself too much time but oh well, here I am.

The funny thing is that even though I have a long list of things to do and I have all this time to do it, I just don't have the energy and often look around feeling overwhelmed at the magnitude of what needs to be done and then give up after I spend a whole day trying to complete tasks only to find that everything gets messy again.

But overall, I think the time thing before mat leave is a good thing. I was finding that I was getting fed up at work and then I was exhausted when I got home. Since I was exhausted, I wasn't giving my 100% at home and there were many nights when we had chicken nuggets instead of a good family meal.

The other reason why it's nice to be off work? I wasn't sleeping. It being June, there have been some hot nights and those have been killer. If it's not the heat, I just can't get comfortable.

So here I am at home, with a long list of things to do and just waiting to meet the little baby that is going to shake up our lives.

I have given myself 2 weeks before my due date in case the baby comes early. Most of my friends seem supportive. One person commented on my facebook " why are you off already?" but overall, although I have doubts, I think this is for the best.

What have I done other than my list of things to do?
-got my haircut
-got a pedicure
-got a prenatal massage

So I really can't complain. So far, going on mat leave early is a great idea. In another 2 weeks, my views on this may have changed...