Wednesday 31 December 2008

Greg didn't know I was filming.

Also Known As: Maya is holding her rattle for the first time.

Maya's first Christmas.

We spent Maya's first Christmas with Greg's family. Maya was mesmerised by the Christmas tree, decorations and lights. She also seemed to enjoy looking at the other children. Unfortunately she didn't like being held by other people. I think Christmas was actually a little overwhelming for Maya because she's used to a quiet house with just Greg and I and there were lots of unfamiliar faces and loud noises. Though considering Maya's age (10 weeks) I actually think she coped reasonably well.

Tuesday 30 December 2008

An enjoyable incentive.

While I was in the hospital (after the birth of Maya) I was asked if I would consider leaving a day early because they needed the extra bed. The difference wasn't much - we left at 5pm the night before instead of 9am the next day. Before we left I over heard a mid-wife telling patients 'don't bother calling for help tonight unless it's an emergency because we are severely under staffed'. So we made the right decision to leave.

But here's the interesting bit.. they offered us a choice of three incentives to leave early:
1) Three boxes of nappies - Nappies are expensive but we would buy them anyway, so we decided against this one.

2) Two day stays at a support centre - Again probably not cheap but we didn't know if we'd use it or not and if we did need extra support with Maya we would just pay whatever the cost.

3)
Overnight accommodation at the Sofitel in Melbourne including a bottle of wine, breakfast and late check out - Yep we chose this one because it's not something we would have paid for.

We had four months in which to use the Sofitel voucher and last night was the only night I could find before it expired. We took Maya for a long walk along the Yarra River and through the city. Then we had a take away dinner in our room. At this point our plan was to put Maya to bed and then enjoy the wine and big screen TV but Maya refused to go to sleep with any light and noise in the room. So after a long struggle we had to give up and turn off all lights in the room and be quiet - which meant we had to go to sleep too. So it wasn't exactly a romantic getaway, but it was nice to get out and do something different. Plus getting served breakfast in bed was pretty nice. If only breakfast would appear every morning.....

Thursday 18 December 2008

Thursday 4 December 2008

Injections and surnames.

Maya had her first set of immunisations today. It was tough watching them stick the injections into her (yes injections as in two of them). As soon as the first one entered her leg she screamed! She seems to be OK afterwards but she's a bit out of sorts and wants to sleep a lot!

Anyway, when I went to sign her in for her injections the nurse had to enter my details as well as Mayas and she made several comments about how weird my surname is and told me that I should have changed it to my husband's name.

Taking Greg's surname would make my life easier because my name constantly has comments made about it. But when I married Greg I'd had my surname for 30 years and it seemed odd to just change it. Actually I'd always hated my name, but I'd finally gotten used to it and even began to like it for it unusualness. And probably the biggest reason I didn't change it is that I felt like it was a connection to my father, who'd passed away 7 years earlier. But it's still frustrating having the same conversation over and over again with different people - "That's an unusual surname, where's it from?"