Friday 24 January 2014

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go...

So much has changed since I last blogged and it’s almost beyond me to try and summarise the last few months. I feel so incredibly lucky. I have this beautiful, healthy, incredibly awesome family. I now have a job too, and that is actually really important to me. As documented here, being a stay-at-home mum has been hard for me, I’m sort of the Anti-Hero of the domestic world.

We had a bit of a scare a few months ago. Lets just say there was a possibility that the husby might be out of work, and we both had to seriously consider what we’d do if we had no income for a while. It was very scary and I think we both experienced real panic. So I began job-hunting. It wasn’t a tough thing to do, I was keen to work again, and had been thinking about work since before the Chicken was born. But now it was necessary and I tried damn hard to get some part time work as a supplementary income and back-up in case the turds hit the air-con.

Long story short, I got contacted about a full time job that I’d never have thought to apply for, it was such great money that I had to apply, and in the end, I got it. The long story involves not actually getting it, and accepting a part time job that I didn’t fancy instead but then finding out that the person who was offered it turned it down, and being the runner-up I was next in line. Anyway suffice to say, the opportunity is so good, both financially and career-wise that we made some changes to allow me to go full time. I had received several rejections, many of them for jobs way below my skill-level, making me start to despair of my chances of getting work. I never imagined I’d manage to return on this level – if anything I thought I’d have to take a decrease in pay and responsibilities on returning to the workforce after 2 years.

So Husby is now Mister Mom – a mantle that suits him far better than it ever did me. Of course I miss my babies. Lots. I feel terrible guilt about not seeing them such a lot of the day for such a lot of the week. But the beauty of this job is that it’s public service so I have RDOs to spend with them. And I know how much work is intrinsic to my identity. I need to DO something that seems useful, and it is great to be a contributor (finally) to the family income.

I couldn’t have done this – or thought I could do it – if it weren’t for the fact that Chicken sleeps. Not “sleeps like a baby”, thank heavens, but sleeps like a proper human being, that is, for 9 – 10 hours a night.  I would not have believed it possible and I count my lucky stars every day that I wake up and she has slept through.  She is such a different baby to the Monkey, she is very laid-back and smiley, whereas the Monkey was pretty intense and serious from memory. He was SO BUSY being the first to move, roll, crawl, stand, walk etc. that there was no time for sleep or even quiet reflection. The Chicken is actually almost crawling now, she can commando and move around a room, if not in a particularly intentional way. But she is also super-smiley and very content. And the absolute best thing – she finds the Monkey hilarious. She squeals with laughter when he is running around flinging himself about like a lunatic and it makes my heart burst.

The Monkey is divine, so intelligent, so articulate and precocious and with a lively and delightful imagination. But I suppose it’s this imagination that makes it difficult for him to sleep at night and he’s still waking at least once a night.

And leaving him is even harder than leaving the Chicken, even though I had to part-wean her. Because he wails, “I don’t want you to go to work!!!” when I leave and runs after me clinging to my leg, and physically breaking my heart. God it’s awful. Last night I got up to the Monkey 4 times and the Chicken twice. I was a zombie today at work. Luckily I am still in training mode, God help me when I have to actually be productive. I have wine now. Signing off…. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz