A very lovely surprise...

I found out today that I am not just getting 17 weeks of maternity leave payments, but another 17 weeks of parental leave payments as well. That makes 34 weeks of continuing to get my regular salary while staying home with little K.

I had been under the impression that I was only getting the first 17 weeks. So when I kept getting deposits from my place of work, I was concerned that at some point they would call me and ask for all that money back. But now that I've talked to our wonderful HR people, I'm quite pleased.

Any day now...

I decided to take my mat leave starting a week early - so I've had this week off. I needed it. I have started clearing space in our office for the baby's half of the room. I've washed all of the baby clothes and made a short list of the few other things we need to pick up, I'm napping in the afternoons, and I'm slowly cleaning the apartment (it's gotten pretty messy in the past few busy weeks).

Today my list includes: dropping my work keys off at the university (the new staffer will need them); going to baby stores to find cloth diapers, a nursing pillow, and whatever else seems important; calling more daycares and getting us on a few more waiting lists; and cleaning at least one bathroom. We'll see if I get it all done!

Last week my thesis proposal was approved by my committee (with a few changes). So I've made those changes and completed my ethics approval application forms. Hopefully I don't need to make too many changes to my ethics application. I won't hear back about that one until I likely have my baby in my arms and I'm not sure how motivated I'll be to work on it at that point!

Well, that's all for now. No baby yet... I'm betting on June 13 but I'm starting to feel like it may be more imminent than that!