We thought this was a thunder storm at 4am this morning. So did the PuppyDeluxe.
I really have to get on with using the nasty noises CD I bought to fix that problem. I don’t think we’d have slept through the noise, but it wouldn’t have too bad to be awake through it more calmly.
Mark has his one-off start of year, getting to know you lecture at Deakin, so I’m looking after Foozley and ‘working from home’ today.
I pretty much never spend a day on my own with the munchkin so, although we could have asked other people to look after him, this seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. And I have been working - although, obviously not right this minute.
‘Working from home’ really seems to mean mostly getting up and down from sitting in front of my laptop (I’m posting this from the mac, btw, not the work machine). I sit down, look at something for a moment, then decide I need a cup of tea. I sit down again, look at something, then the dogs bark, so I go to investigate and yell at them. And so on. I have managed to get one thing done, though, so something has been acheived.
It really would be good if I had some major ‘thing’ to work on - a document to write, for example - because I could just sit down and go for it. Unfortunately, though, most of what I have to do at the moment are bits and pieces of stuff, which need input from other people and that’s difficult to get from here.
“There’ll be no witchcraft on our system. Put it on (name deleted)”
Seriously.
Yesterday all 3 of us woke up in varying states of tired and grumpy.
I was absolutely miserable, completely devoid of any confidence or self-belief and really just wanting to curl up in a ball and disappear. Going to work felt like the hardest thing I’d ever done and I spent the day in the office resisting the urge to just pack up and go.
Then, late at night, when I couldn’t sleep, misery turned into rage. At who or what I couldn’t tell you. And lying in the dark burning with resentment and anger made it all the more difficult to sleep. I did sleep, though, eventually.
Today I’m tired and not the cheeriest poppet in the world, but I’m doing OK. The world just seems an easier place to be in. And yesterday’s angst feels inexplicable.
Some days are just like that.
What’s going on here?
I duck into farkenace for a moment’s light relief in a ridiculously busy day and what do I get?
Gornisht!!
Did you all pack up and head for the hills and no one told me?
I’ve got a busy couple of days ahead of me and I’m only just now starting to get my head around what I need to do. That’s almost half a day wasted on phaffing.
I really need to get a grip on this stuff. It’s not rocket science. It just needs me to be on the ball.
But I have a head full of cotton wool and my neck feels like it’s in a vice. I would much rather be at home with knitting and Dr Phil.
But I’m not so I better just get over it.
I didn’t see this article in yesterday’s Age until I followed the link on Loobylu. It, and the letters that have followed it, are very interesting.
Mark Cleary basically says that parenting is something we do because we have to. That it is
an incredibly mind-numbing, energy-sapping and, for the most part, banal experience
and, of course, there’s a letter writer who disagrees.
From where I stand I feel as though I can see both points of view. I spend my days alternately wishing I been able to stay home with Finn for longer and relieved that I’m not the one who has to listen to the toddler scream while I’m in the toilet. On the one hand I’m terribly jealous of the colleague who has just returned to work after 18 months off (she went on leave a month before me and came back a year after me) and on the other I’m terribly glad that I wasn’t at home with Finn yesterday afternoon. I know I would find being at home mind-numbing, energy-sapping and banal, but I also know that I would love bits of it.
This is the conundrum of parenthood, I think. That whichever model we employ, there will always be aspects of another that we will crave.
Having been through these years of drought, I refuse to complain about rain. It’s one of those things we could always do with more of.
This morning, though, as I crawled through the traffic on a 90 minute trip to work, I was finding it hard to remember that.
I found it even harder to remember as I dodged my way through the downpipe overflows running across the footpaths on my way from the carpark. I really should have worn different shoes…
Even now that I’m indoors and drying off, the best I can say is that the catchments had better be getting plenty of it.
The smaller of my older sisters turns 50 this year. At christmas she was talking about what she was going to do for her birthday and wanting to organise something special.
At the time Mark & I suggested that she should have a Summertown party. What could be better for your birthday than to have DC playing in your loungeroom? At the time Lil Big Sis seemed a little cool on the idea.
Then she rang yesterday to tell us that she’s done it. She’s booked a Summertown party for her birthday! I didn’t actually get to speak to her, but she sounded pretty excited on my MessageBank.
I’m really looking forward to her party now. For a while there I was expecting to be surrounded by her friends from years ago with all of them telling me how terribly young I am. That may still happen, but at least there’ll be a bit of really good music to hear.
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