KIT days

I'm on maternity leave until September or October (haven't quite decided yet). I feel very lucky to live in the UK where we have the option of up to 12 months off for maternity leave. It has allowed me to parent my daughters in the way I feel is best for them.

But I am also taking advantage of my Keeping In Touch (KIT) days this time. The idea of these are that you can have up to 10 days paid in work without it affecting your maternity rights. I used one before little m was born to accompany a field trip and today I used my second one to do some marking for something that only I am qualified to assess.

Obviously, little m is only 7 weeks and utterly refusing to take expressed milk from a bottle or cup at the moment so she had to come in with me. I was a little later this morning that I wanted to be so I went straight into our morning meeting. It was the best entrance I have ever made! Everyone was chatting away like normal, then I walk in and everyone stopped and said 'aw, it's a baby' lol.

She sat good as gold and wide awake through the briefing and was brilliant all day. No crying, no poo and the odd small sick now and again!

I have got my marking done, been brought up to date with the politics going on in the place at the moment, made sure that my faculty is being run in the way that I like and had a damn good gossip with all my mates.

It was funny to see the different reaction between the sexes - the females noticed that baby first and the males noticed me. You really can't complain when you get paid to show your baby off all day! If only I could work and be able to be with my baby at the same time, all the time.