Maternity Leave Week 1

I’ve officially been on maternity leave for one week. I thought I’d get bored, but the week went by surprisingly fast! Basically I’ve been sleeping and eating a lot, running errands, going to yoga or on long walks everyday and just indulging in this time of rest. Baby Satski is due on 4/20, so I’m just a ticking time bomb now. I’m a mixed bag of emotions: excitement, fear, curiosity, patience, anxiousness. I’ve been snapping photos throughout the days to capture this rare time where I really don’t have anything to do but wait. I haven’t had time to work on this book, Secret Garden by Johanna Basford, since Christmas. And if you haven’t heard, coloring books for adults is trending in a major way: New York Times, Buzzfeed, Bored Panda. It’s funny because at work this book was a source of stress with its sold-out status, and now here I am using it as a calming activity. I made my first pizza from scratch: sausage, artichokes, ricotta, jalapenos, and garlic. Game changer. Recipe modified from Dinner: A Love Story. I also made some meatloaf. I forgot to take pictures until after I had packed away all the left-overs. Apple pie was store bought.  Mad Men marathon. Russell and I are going back to all the key episodes since season 1 before starting the new season. You’ll find me on the couch most nights like this.  Baked chocolate chip cookies from this New York Times recipe. My mom came over for one night to stock up my fridge and pantry with postnatal enriching foods. She’s staying with us for a month after baby arrives, so she wanted to get the lay of the land and see where everything’s organized, so she can jump right in to help as soon as Baby Satski’s here. In other words, I have the best mom in the world. I’m also catching up on my huge backlog of New Yorkers. I’m living in stretchy clothes now. I feel like a true suburbanite running all my errands in yoga clothes in the middle of the day.  I visited Russell at school one day. His colleagues threw us a baby shower, more on that later. I love how organized his classroom is.  Lemon ricotta pancakes for weekend brunch at home. I used this recipe.Walking is supposed to help bring on labor, so I’ve been walking as much as possible.  Let’s see how many more days/weeks of pre-baby maternity leave I get. I won’t have this kind of time for myself again for a long time, so I’m really trying to appreciate it. Can’t stop thinking about delivering the baby soon though!

_