It’s been six week since I went back to work and four of those have been doing my full three days in the office with the girls to look after at home on the other two. It’s gone far more smoothly than I had anticipated (to date…) but it has been quite a reality check, reminding me that keeping-up a job alongside small children is like tightrope walking whilst juggling plates: one unanticipated gust and I go crashing down, smashing …
Category: Mum Life
The phrase ‘sleep like a baby’ has been around for goodness knows how long and is usually used after a wonderfully delightful nights sleep. Clearly the people who use this phrase are not parents because let’s be honest, I don’t really want to sleep like a baby. They spend a lot of the night huffing and puffing, waking and sometimes crying, feeding or at worst dealing with the discomfort of teething. Sure babies get a lot of sleep but their …
Shortly after Little Z was born, I read an article by a mother saying the 1st birthday of her second child was a huge milestone because. as parents, she and her husband had survived. They knew they could do it. Now I’m not sure as we hit that same 12-month marker that I’ll be letting my guard down and assuming we’ve ‘got it’. After all, complacency is the downfall of a parent in my view. But… I do agree with …
Life when I wrote my last update feels like a world away now. I have just read it back to myself and the focus was all about preparing for returning work and the party for the Big 4. Yet those events have now happened and we are in the throws of adjusting to our new normal. I’ll be honest, I’m still coming to terms with the fact my Maternity Leave has ended. I’ve definitely got a huge wave of nostalgia …
This week has been a tough one. For starters it was Little Z’s first week at full time nursery. It was the longest she and I have been apart in her entire life. I have been trying so hard to stay focussed and positive both for myself and Little Z, that when Sam drove off with them both in the car the emotions really hit. Just for a few minutes, But they hit and I had a little cry. Then …
So it is finally done, the last day of my maternity leave with Little Z. Technically it was a week-or-so ago, but in practical terms it was yesterday as from next week Little Z is at nursery with her big sis. I’m quite shocked that we’re already here – the time seems to have flown. I didn’t treat the day as special in any way; we did normal things to our normal schedule, albeit for the last time. From now …
So as I sit writing this Little H, you are at nursery having been four for a whole week. Four years old. Four year. Four. Seriously, four. How did that happen? I sound like every parent under the sun when I say it feels like yesterday that you arrived but as if you’ve always been here. I remember life before you, but I can’t remember how we filled it. I can recall what we did with all that time or …
“It’ll be fine.”, “It’ll all be fine.”, “It’s going to be fine.”. These words are on repeat in my head right now. They are on repeat because the time has finally arrived – the end of my maternity leave. Next week Little Z starts her nursery settles. Then the following week she starts nursery full-time 3 days a week with her sister. Meanwhile, I go (*deep breath*) back to work.
So unless you are Brazilian, Portuguese or reading the same book as me (which I’m loving, but I’ll come back to that) then you are probably thinking “What the heck is ‘saudade'”? Ask me two weeks ago and I wouldn’t have known either. But a couple of weeks ago I bought myself a copy of ‘The Atlas of Happiness’ by Helen Russell. She wrote a book called ‘The Year of Living Danishly’ a few years ago which I really enjoyed …
Next month Little Z starts her nursery settles. Then the week after those, she starts full time before, two weeks after that, I go back to work. I’ve done it before with Little H but yet I still find myself juggling a real mix of emotions. Juggling, or perhaps struggling with. I’m not quite sure to be honest. I never expected my return to be easy of course. Different child, different return to work. But I’d hoped I wouldn’t find …
