Being Momma G: Day 82

A big adventure awaited Sean and I today. Today, Sean was going to catch a bus for the first time in his life, and meet all the "uncles" and "aunties" at my work.

Today, I was going to ask for an extension to my maternity leave, and I hoped work would be understanding and agree to extend my leave.

After telling Sean a few times yesterday what a big day we had planned for today, he slept until 3am before waking for a feed. Having gotten almost 5 hours of sleep, I was ready to stay awake, or at least alert, to feed Sean. It was a good feed, and the little man had no trouble going back into his cot and back to sleep afterwards.

Just after Jonathan left to go to work, Sean woke for his next feed, so we went to the lounge room and fed in the armchair. A short play time after the feed ensued, before Sean returned to his cot for another sleep. The little man woke with a start after only one sleep cycle, and I managed to resettle him within 15 minutes, after which Sean slept for another hour. Woot!

It was just before 11am when Sean woke to have a feed, and straight afterwards, we got ready to head out. We drove to St Leonards, where we parked the car, and Sean and I went up to the bus stop to wait for the bus. Sean was happy enough to be in his pram for a while, and the bus arrived after a short wait. Once on the bus, the little man wanted to see what being on a bus was all about, so I took him out of the pram so he could look about and see the view out the window.

Sean and I enjoyed our bus trip together, and Sean even charmed a couple of ladies sitting near us by giving them big smiles. The bus trip to the city didn't take long, and we arrived in the city in plenty of time. We headed straight to Church Stores to get the baptism candle, and I found one that matched our wedding candle. I wanted to have the candle personalised with Sean's name and baptism date, but I had left it too late to get the personalisation completed - we needed to give at least 4 weeks of notice to get it done. I decided to wait until after the baptism to get the personalisation done, if at all.

Sean fell asleep in the pram while we were at Church Stores, and slept until we arrived at my office building. We were warmly greeted by the lovely Neil, one of the security guys for the building. Neil and I chatted for a little while before we went through the doors and up to my office. Sean was well and truly awake by the time we rounded the corner and into the area where I worked, and he was very warmly greeted by everyone.

It was good to see the team. Yolande had a cuddle with the little man, as did Leah and Gaylene. Mat shied away from a cuddle, but Jeff and James didn't. Word quickly spread that I was in the office, and Katie, Deanne, Marian and Anisha all swung by to meet the little man. Neil S, one of my managers, came through after his meeting, and he had a little cuddle with Sean. Sean enjoyed being the centre of attention and lapped up all the cuddles.

All too soon, it was 3pm and time for us to head around to Paula's office. The reason for my visit to work was to speak with Paula about extending my maternity leave, and we were to meet at 3pm to discuss my options. On our way to Paula's office, we bumped into the big wigs Neil Mc and Gio, both of whom cooed over the baby and asked after me. By the time we walked around to Paula's office, we were running quite a few minutes behind schedule, and Sean was getting hungrier and hungrier and wasn't afraid to let everyone know about it.

When Paula and I finally sat down to have a chat, I also fed Sean, who was more than happy to have his lunch while we talked. Paula was very understanding of my intentions and my reasoning behind my decision to take more time off work. Paula had been following Sean's progress through this blog, and she was supportive of my decision and told me that should I wish to extend my leave even further, beyond January 2012, she would certainly try to help me sort something out. In the meantime, she would help me get the ball rolling on extending my current leave plan, so my return to work date would be changed from 1 August 2011 to 16 January 2012. It was lovely to know that I was going to be taken care of and looked after by work.

Sean was well behaved and fed well throughout our chat, and at the end of our meeting, Paula had a few cuddles with the little man, who was a lot happier and more personable now that he had a full stomach. As it was getting late in the day, we bade farewell to Paula and continued our visit to some of my other colleagues who had yet to see Sean. We dropped by Jesse's office, and Jesse had a good long cuddle. Jesse had correctly predicted Sean's sex well before anyone knew he was a boy, and Jesse had been looking forward to meeting Sean.

Keeping an eye on the time, we finished off our visit by dropping in on Marlene. More cuddles for the little guy, who was just lapping it up! Sean now had so many more fans, and we made a promise to return for future visits.

We left my office building just before 5pm and headed up to Jonathan's office building to pick him up. Sean was still awake when we reached Jonathan's office building, so Jonathan picked Sean up and gave him cuddles, and we walked down to the bus stop together. The poor little man was beyond tired, and fell asleep in Jonathan's arms on the bus on the way to St Leonards.

As soon as we got home, Sean had another feed, before going to bed without a whimper. It had been a long day for the little guy, so we weren't surprised that he did not fight us about going to bed.

I have no idea what time the little man is going to wake up, but as Jonathan and I are both tired, we are not going to continue to wait. No doubt Sean will wake soon, but in the meantime, we will wait for him in bed, hopefully getting a little sleep before Sean needs our attention again.