Two weeks is not very long

My husband's paternity leave ended on Monday and he went back to work. When I was planning to have a nice normal birth with no nasty stitches or operation, I had intended just to get on with the business of mummying on my own. But obviously, with a c-section things are rather more complicated, what with the not being able to bend over to pick things up or lift anything other than the baby.

So my lovely mother has come to stay. I am lucky in that we have a very good relationship and I like spending time with her. She is also not someone who is wont to tell me what to do, butt in, or generally interfere with me getting to grips with mummyhood. Instead, she has been very helpful at picking up things I have dropped, getting me cups of tea, and, of course, giving the baby the odd cuddle. We even managed to make it to Tesco the other day - with Elodie in tow. It took an hour and a half to leave the house as Elodie decided she wanted to feed, feed again, do a poo and then have another little feed first. Then she was fine and was in the car as good as gold, and happily in my sling while we walked around Tesco. Although when we got home, congratulating ourselves on our achievement, we realised that the small, separate pile of shopping which my mother had intended to buy had been left on the conveyor belt for the next customer. Ooops.

My husband doesn't seem to be suffering massive separation anxiety from having to leave his teeny offspring each day. And he is getting even better at sleeping through night feeds. Which have been getting a little more trying for me. I'm hoping that she is just going through a growth spurt, but the last couple of nights, she has been feeding on and off between about 10pm and 3am - sometimes just a tiny bit at a time then apparently falling asleep, but complaining when you try and put her down. This is really quite tiring. She then only gets up again at 6am to 7am, but really, that's not very much sleep for me. I think what makes it difficult is that I don't really know when she is going to stop - so each time having fed her, given her lots of cuddles, possibly changed her and then put her tenderly into the cot, I am hopeful that this is it and I can go to sleep. But invariably, it isn't. It doesn't help that I had a friend over yesterday and was unable to have a rest during the day, so am feeling really quite drained today. Elodie, however, seems very happy with life. She is also having a nice long sleep now - I am tempted to try and wake her to encourage wakefulness during daylight hours and sleepiness more during the night.

I went to a family centre with my friend T yesterday in the hope of joining a bumps to babies group. Unfortunately, there were no bumps or babies - apparently the group was quite big but they are hoping to restart it again after the summer because it all quietened down. I am now trying to search out other possible groups - I have got to find some other mums at some point or it will just be me and, err, mumsnet for advice. My husband thinks I have become addicted. I'm yet to post though, I'm currently just lurking. The family centre, however, was amazing - completely chaotic, unbelievably noisy and messy and just good fun with children crawling, running and playing all over the place. A favourite activity appeared to be mixing flour, water and some green stuff together with whisks and spatulas, which ended up with green gloop on the floor, on the children's clothes and hair, on the midwife we were chatting to and even a teeny bit on Elodie. I think she needs to get a bit bigger before she'll get the most out of it, but it will definitely be fun.