Recently I was asked more than once how I have been since the birth of Nina. Here is how I have replied: the first month was really hard. The second month was quite hard. The third month was easier. Ever since I feel like I have been on holiday …

A friend commented that I am the first ‘new’ mother that he knows of who describes the early months as holiday.

I guess the main reason is that Nina has been very gentle to me – she lets me sleep through the night ever since she was 9 weeks. I know I am extremely lucky for it because some women do not get to sleep whole night for years … And this has nothing to do with her dad being French! (see the previous post)… Sometimes I would get more sleep than I had normally had before Nina came along.

I have been quite active from quite early on, which helps as well. We went for a lot of sightseeing when my mom was here with us. We go on walks when the weather is good (which is the case most of time). I go out for lunch and dinner with friends, sometimes without Nina. I have been back to Chinglish regularly. We went away for overnight trip. We go to swimming pool. We went to watch whales. We spent nice time on the beach when it was still warm. We visited many markets and museums and art galleries and so on. I read books. We even managed to climb the Harbour Bridge. Except that every now and then I have to fit in a feeding session and things have to go VERY slowly, these are all sorts of things that I would have been doing on a holiday anyway (ok fair enough I didn’t have to limit myself to pram-friendly tracks only … ).

Another big reason is that we have moved the house (when Nina was 9 weeks, against the advice of all brochures and books – no house moving within the first year!) to a place right next to the bush (this is how Aussis call forest). From every room we see trees and trees and trees, and hear birds and birds and birds. Some friends say our house is like a holiday house, and other say they feel like going on a camping ground when coming to our place. This is the type of place I would have liked to stay on a holiday, and now I live in such a place every single day.

So why wouldn’t I feel like being on a (special) holiday?