Making it Work!

I’ve been back working full time now for 2 weeks (well 9 days as I started on a Tuesday).

I’m not sure what I expected but it is bloody hard work. Not the work itself but everything else!

Working full time while having children is not a new thing for me, I went to work full time when Callum was 18 months but, with 2 children at different stages in life provides a whole new set of challenges!

When I went back to work after Callum, I started on a Wednesday, Callum was sick on the Thursday, I had a holiday booked on the Friday, to go to Scotland with a fab group of girls where I came down with Callum’s bug, had to force my poorly self into work on the Monday despite feeling rotten as I daren’t take any more days off just after starting a new job. However, thankfully, after the false start the rest of the working life went pretty smoothly.

This time, in the space of these first 2 weeks in the job we’ve had an incident where the nursery didn’t collect Callum and another child after school to take them to After School Club (there fault, not ours!), we’ve forgotten to pay for school dinners (so suddenly had to provide packed lunch for the week after and Stuart was snapped at with ‘we’re a school not a bank’ when he tried to pay for school dinner until the end of term with a a debit card over the phone), Callum had to be collected from school by Stuart after falling asleep in class and having a temperature, teething Millie waking me up through the night and being grumpy, I had to collect Millie from nursery today for having a temp, loose nappy and being sick which turned out to just be an episode of teething with a teething nappy and reflux (which she gets when teething)! The whole time I’ve been suffering from a delightful sore throat bug which has taken me 3 weeks to recover from! Stuart has been told off for not completing a ‘school photo consent form’ which we definitely never received and Callum didn’t get to have in the end anyway due to being poorly!

We (lets say ‘we’ to be diplomatic) are juggling remembering to make nursery payments and booking in the sessions we need in advance of the next week (while having no idea where work will be sending me next), remembering school dinner payments, getting teacher training days thrown upon us out of the blue, trying to think ahead to what the hell we are going do do with Callum during school half term, Callum saying he doesn’t like breakfast club/after-school club. The nurse is trying to book Millie in for her 13 month jabs when the only week we can do is the week she can’t do! I’m finding out daily where I’m being sent the next day and have absolutely no idea where I’m going to be next week so haven’t a clue what additional childcare to arrange, if any.

I’m dropping balls left, right and centre and my head is swimming!

I get home and once I’ve sorted the dishes, the laundry (not helped by Callum destroying his uniform on a daily basis), fed the kids some more, cleared out the cats’ litter tray and fed said cats, put kids to bed, cooked dinner, danced the tango while knitting a scarf, I collapse onto the sofa for an hour before crawling into bed to be woken up hourly by Millie or to get insomnia at 4am or for Millie to start her day at 5.30am!

Quite frankly, right now, I don’t know which way is up!

I love working, I want to work, I enjoy that time where I am Debbie! Not mummy, not wife, but Debbie the IT Trainer! I’ve worked hard to get where I am and I love what I do. But, quite frankly, I sure as hell miss those days where I could just walk out the door, go to work and come home without having an anxiety attack every time I see a missed call on my phone and wondering who is ill or what have I forgotten to do this time! It’s not even as if I get to recover at the weekends! Please tell me life gets easier!

One thing is for sure, I make a crap Juggler!