Mixed Emotions Part 2

Late last week we made our way home from our great QLD adventure.  It was lovely to have some time together as a family, something sorely missing from our hectic lives at the end of last year. It was also a wonderful chance for me to be able to really think about our plans for the future.

Can I tell you a secret? After I finished work and lived the mayhem of Christmas and Mr T's emergency room visit, I had been having second thoughts about our choices... About being a stay at home mum.  STOP!!!  Now before you all yell at me for being crazy, and telling me how some of you would kill to have the opportunity to stay home with your family, please hear me out.  I'm going somewhere I promise.

I have always been a very independent person quite career driven. Owing to a bit of a complicated childhood, I had a fairly skewed view of women who stayed home with the kids.  Now naturally after having kids myself and seeing other SAHM's hard at work, I realised that what I saw as a child were two drastic extremes of being a SAHM, neither of which gave a true interpretation of what it means.  But I digress. After having my own babies I realised all those things other mothers said were right.  It's different when they are your babies, you want to be with them.. And that's true.  However neither of my darlings were great sleepers which made for a slightly rocky start to our relationship.  Which drove me to feel inadequate as a mother and therefore search out something that made me feel in control again.  So I started my own business at home when Mr T was about two months old, thinking I could at least feel as if I was organised in some part of my sleep deprived life.  The balance for that was working well, however my business was the sort to take over your life with not a lot of return. We then decided that if I was enjoying the grown up time and the kids were enjoying daycare I could easily go to work full time.

Technically I have never had a moment to just enjoy being with my boys at home as a mum.  It's always been a balancing act.  Which had worked for us... Until this past year.  So now it's time to work on my family and nurture our boys.  Give them ( and to be honest me too) some good old fashioned family time.  But I'll tell you another secret, it's pretty bloody daunting too.  What if we really can't afford this, Sydney is an expensive city; what if I change as a person and my husband doesn't like the new mummy me; what if my career focused non child rearing friends don't want to hang out when all my days revolve around my kids schedule? Did I mention I have a habit of over thinking things :-) ?

With all this chaos in my head it was awesome to get away for a bit and just not over think everything.  And you know what? I figured something out...... It doesn't matter!  If money gets too tight I can find a new job, I'm not completely unemployable just for taking some family time. The next thing I discovered was that I need to give my husband a little more credit.   Both of us have changed over the years we have been together and that's a good thing.  If we remained exactly the same our entire lives we wouldn't be where we are now, married with two beautiful boys.  And those friends without kids?  Well, the true friends will adapt with me, recognising that I don't need to be a mummy 24/7 and understand that when I want some good, night out with the girls fun ( and my time to not be someones mummy) they will always be the ones I call... Those who drift off into the distance; well how good a friend could they have been in the first place?

So you see I am learning...... it just takes me a while to get it sometimes.

XX


Sidenote: it also doesn't hurt that I am doing a little contracting work for my old company.  A few phone calls and a day in the rat race always reminds me that this is the best decision for us.

Take that Mummy Mafia

Following my most recent post a friend forwarded me the following image...

Nailed it !!!!!!!!!!

Too good not to share

XX

H is for Holiday

 

This week the Naughty family have finally departed on our school holiday break. I am currently posting this blog whilst sitting in the beautiful QLD sunshine. Thank God!!.   During a recent moment of insanity ( I swear we must have been drinking or smoking something) we decided to drive up from Sydney to Brisbane to visit my family for a little holiday.  Airfares costing what they do these days and being a family of four who would need our car whilst on holidays, we decided the most cost effective mode of transport up would be to drive.  Insanity right.  We've been hear one full day officially and I am only now just starting to recover from the trip up. 

It started innocently enough, we planned to pack bags and load up the car with everything we would need the on Sunday and then begin the 12 hour drive on Monday.  We have done this drive a few times  before ( last time I did it solo in one big drive) so we were prepared .  To make things easier we had also planned to stop in Coffs Harbour  for the night to make the drive even easier.   So I had planned as much as I possibly could without actually starting the drive.  Well you know what they say about the best plans.. 

We were hoping to leave by 9 at the latest on Monday to make it to Coffs mid afternoon.  Well, close..... I drove out our driveway at midday.  But that's ok, we only had to do a 6 hour drive and with daylight saving, we'd still be at our stop in daytime.  So we were off... until about 15 minutes down the road Mr T said his back hurts.  This is never a good sign because it is normally followed by tears and I want to get out. So we added some pillows to his seat to rest on and continued.  Five minutes later I turned to briefly check how Mr T was going and saw him doing that kid 'I'm gonna vomit face.' I barely had time to throw the plastic bag towards him before the vomit started.... This is not a great start.  So we stopped for about an hour to figure out if he was actually sick or not and deciphered that it appeared to be car sickness.  Lets continue.

So now the Naughty family are an hour and a half into the journey and we have travelled about 20 minutes from the house.  A quick search for the nearest chemist and the purchase of some motion sickness travel wrist bands and we were off again.  Peace at last?  Not quite.  It was about this time that Mr J decided he couldn't wait to get there any more and started "are we there yet?" and "how many more minutes until we get there"?  Fun right? 

Well, eventually we arrived in Coffs Harbour to a beautiful reasonably priced resort room ( sadly located next to the A/C engine plant), went out for a lovely family friendly dinner ( which I fell incredibly ill at the end of), and managed a fairly uneventful drive the rest of the way to my family.  If I never get a question about playing Disney Infinity on the Wii, or how many minutes is it again it will be too soon. 

I am starting to think that doing family car trips is kind of like child birth.   You look forward to it with excitement, plan with anticipation carefully, EXCRUCIATING PAIN, but then the endorphins kick in ( of the baby or the holiday whichever applies) and you forget all about the agonising pain until next time.

But its ok, I can sit back and relax a little.  I have the boys little cousin and Grandad and Aunty and some cheeky little puppies to help Naughty Hubby and I have a little bit of down time before we head back to the Sydney Rat Race..... and face the LOOOONNNNGGGGG drive home. 

I need a drink ; )

Xx

The Mummy Mafia

Today I want to talk about a few things mummy..So for those of you who follow my blogs but who aren't mummies, hang in there I'll get to the chick stuff again soon.  For those guys who follow my blog, keep reading... you are about to get a fascinating insight into the mummy mind. 

I'm sure everyone is aware of the above image that floated throughout cyberspace in past months, causing mayhem in its path.  I think the general point of this woman's post was to create a stir, which is fine if that is the way she wants to improve business. What it did highlight to me however, is an ever increasing trend towards bullying amongst mummies.    Think about it.  I think this phenomenon has been getting worse over recent years amongst grown women and what's worse, it now seems to be mummies "bullying" other mummies.  I have decided to call it the mummy mafia.

It started as a slight remark about levels of morning sickness being compared or the speed (or lack thereof) of labour and don't get me started on the comparisons about kids hitting their milestones.  "What do you mean little Timmy isn't walking yet? My Prudence has been walking for months etc etc."  " My Mary has been reading at a fifth grade level since kindy, you clearly aren't spending enough time with your little James if he is only reading at age appropriate level."

 Then we progress into territory that is dangerous for all women, weight.  Naturally this is a topic that is touchy at the best of times, but add to it that your entire life ( and hormones) has been turned upside down by one tiny little person and you can imagine the sensitivity.  And I guess that is why this particular image has been so controversial to so many and where it all becomes really disappointing.  I understand that this woman is trying to help others lead healthier lifestyles, but "fat shaming" those who are already struggling with a dramatic change to their body, lifestyle and sanity isn't being helpful.....it's being a bully.

Now before you all get up in arms and tell me I am promoting an unhealthy lifestyle, I'm not. I heartily agree that we should all do the best we can to live as healthy a life as possible for ourselves and our family.  What I am promoting is the time to bring an end to the mummy mafia phenomenon. Life as a woman is hard enough, add children or a partner or both and it becomes more challenging again.  As women shouldn't we be trying to find a way to bond together, and help lift each other up through our shared experience, rather than raising ourselves individually by pushing each other down?

Something to think about...

Xx

Happy New Year

I have decided these are my New Years Resolutions.......

How about you guys?  Here is to a bigger a better 2014 for all of us regardless of whether you believe in resolutions or not ; ) 

xxx

(Credit for image listed) 





Welcome to the Jungle

I finished work now just over 2 weeks ago and I have to say it was a slightly chaotic finish.  As expected the last week was pretty full on, with my mantra to the family being "just let me get past Thursday and I'll be normal again ". ( yeah right).  I was surprisingly sad to be finishing up as I am very much looking forward to spending time with my boys; however work has been a place where I have really enjoyed what I do and got to have some adult time ( no, not like that).  It is very rare to find a job where you love everyone you work with, get lots of autonomy and don't mind the occasional bullshit.....most of the time ;-).

The last day of work however ended up being a much more traumatic than expected.  The Plan was that 1950 hubby was having a day off work and would pick up both boys, before settling them with the babysitter and joining me at my work farewell later in the night.  Everyone at my work left for a late lunch in the afternoon, before moving on to a local club to have a few more drinks and wait for others to join us.  I was probably just getting into my 4th drink of the afternoon/evening when my phone rang.  Since it was close to our meet up time I wasn't surprised to hear from hubby.  More surprising was that he hadn't left the house and there was a problem. It seems our youngest (Mr T) had been jumping on the trampoline ( which is 30cms off the ground) roughhousing with his big brother, and had fallen off and into the garage door.  He had a large cut on the back of his head and after speaking to our GP, who thankfully answers his phone 24/7,  it was decided he should probably go to emergency.

Now that is the rational part of the story.  What I heard on the phone, after having had four drinks and being stuck 40mins away was that my baby was bleeding and on his way to emergency.  Needless to say I didn't handle it the best.  In my defense if I had been there, the adrenaline would have kicked in and I would have dealt with it.  But having few bevvies in me and not being with him... well,  I bawled.  I remember a collegue hugging me whilst my boss spoke to hubby on the phone and then put me in a cab to the children's hospital.  Once I pulled myself together I spoke to the huband again and since we live so close to the children's hospital decided to meet him at home and all go to hospital together.  Since the bleeding had stopped and I was being asked for by Mr T a lot we thought it would be a calmer trip to hospital if I was there too.

Very long story short, with a long time spent in Westmead Children's and 8 stitches to my baby's tiny little head, we finally got home about 2am.  Thankfully the babysitter was able to watch the oldest so we could focus on both being at the hospital.

So welcome to full time mummyhood!! Chaos reigns supreme with two young boys.  This wasn't the first time my youngest had been to emergency and I can guarantee it won't be the last.  I'd like to say it was a surprise but not really.  Mr T is my little rough and tumble boy, the first to get stitches and I reckon will be the first to break a bone lol. Hang on...Best not jinx myself we are only in week two of the school holidays...  If anyone needs me I will be booking in therapy, having a stiff drink and asking my boss for my job back to get me through the next few weeks.

Am I alone though? Those of you with girls do yours get as crazy or is it just me. Lets hope the New Year is a little calmer. Pfft yeah right.  Welcome to the Jungle !!

Until next time

Xx