same, same but different

This morning I crept out of the house at 6am and flew up to Auckland for a meeting.  Mid morning I rang the husband who'd taken a day off work to step in as duty manager.
"Hello darling, how's it going?"
"I don't know what all the fuss is about.  I've hoovered everywhere, am just going to finish folding this washing then I'm off to Tay St to have a boozy lunch with the girls."

I spent a magical couple of hours chatting to the editor of the kind of magazine I'd love to write for.  I saw tulip skirted girls in opaque tights and matt red lipstick march through busy offices with self confidence and furrow browed concentration, neatly stepping round the table football in strappy platforms to grab a coffee.

There was an equally high level of industriousness at home when I got back - the husband cooking tea, twin1 lifting up her t shirt to show the fresh little pox which have popped up on her chest since last night, twin2 swatting twin1 over the head and whooping with laughter and the lad screaming at the girls to be quiet so he could concentrate on cartoons.  Same, same but different.

A pox on thee

There is barely a four year old left in our town who hasn't got or hasn't had chicken pox.  The lad proudly showed me the blooms of scabby blotches on his torso a few days ago.  This answered the question of why the husband and I had been changing puke soaked sheets each night last week and begged another:  how do you work when your child is unable to go to childcare?  Luckily my parents are here to help and the lad's best mate has chicken pox too so his mum and I can tag team looking after them as they lift up their t shirts and compete for the title of most pox ridden.  I'm thinking more about the parents who see the telltale spots and have to dress their children in high necked, long sleeved t shirts and trousers and pack them off to school with strict instructions to stay fully clothed regardless of the temperature.  It must be incredibly stressful worrying about your poorly child whilst maintaining a professional, collected air at work.

Stand too close and you'll be covered in it

Despite being rather a frantic, excitable person I don't tend to get stressed by too much.  I can roll with the punches as well as the next man.  For two weeks however I have felt increasingly anxious to the point were the last three days have been spent in a state of nauseous panic.  A tennis ball of sick felt lodged in the base of my throat, held back by the faintest pressure, ready to expel itself bileous and green in a broken, teary breakdown.

I spoke to my Dad and the husband and voiced a few of my niggling worries.  They both had the same thing to say.  Life is for enjoying, particularly in the now.  Don't worry about things too much.  It was such welcome, calming and simple advice.  Then I read an article about someone trying to let go in various ways.  Thank goodness for Dads and husbands as well as random advice from strangers.  This morning I still feel nervy but I no longer feel like I'm gliding here and there with a face of pinched muscles and a brain smashing round in cavernous darkness.

School's out

From the moment your first child exits your body, you embark a process of 'firsts' which look like they will last for many years. Today was the first day the lad has ever had a school holiday. Even though his old kindy (where the twins are now) used to close over Christmas and Easter, it didn't follow a term time schedule. Unlike the kindy he now attends which kicked off two weeks of holiday today. It has left me feeling rather unsettled. I will be able to jig things around, and organise extra childcare so that I can keep up with my work over this holiday but I can't help but feel slightly clammy when I look ahead to a year away with the three of them snapping at my ankles for each school holiday. Millions deal with this quandary round the world and I feel fortunate that I work from home so can be flexible.

Rather excitingly though, it means I get to spend some time on my own with the lad. This morning we sped all over town doing little jobs and buying food. He asked if we could go to the library and read a story. We sat on the cushions in the boat set adrift in the corner of the children's section and revelled in the sound of the rain on the roof and pictures of volcanoes and dinosaurs. Over the last few weeks I have been taking one twin out of kindy early on the odd morning. We either go swimming in the natural outdoor hot pools down the road, eat cake and hot chocolates in a cafe or go and watch the waves on the beach. The amount of time twins get on their own with either parent is minimal and I want to make sure I can get as much in as possible over the next two years before the little cherubs start school.

Dusting off the cobwebs between my ears

Last week was extremely busy. I started to feel slightly panicked at what I have taken on. For some time now I have been desparate to do some work. The challenge was to find something both enjoyable and which fit around my little family. Freelance writing looked like the most likely candidate to fit the bill. A friend suggested I start writing a blog to practice writing. It has been no hardship writing this little diary. It's rather addictive actually. A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to meet the editor of Simply You magazine who very kindly gave me the most fantastic opportunity. In September I will have two pieces published in this New Zealand fashion bible. I'm so excited! My clever brother has built me a website so now I can officially say "I'm a writer."
Last week I had a taster of what I hope will happen more often - I had deadlines to meet. The almost obsolete cogs of my brain clunked into action and managed to pull two more articles from its murky depths for Look Magazine. Such intense mental activity after a 4 year break necessitated a boozy, cackle filled lunch. So that's what I did from Saturday lunchtime until 11pm that night.

A New Low

Yesterday I went to see a friend and her children for a catch up and a play. She is highly intelligent. She has a degree, has written a children's book and is about to launch her own company online. We chattered away for a while, refereed a few tiffs between our 6 chiddlers and ate cake. Just as I was about to leave, I noticed a large brown box in the garage.

Chum: I bought a new washing machine the other day with a 7.5kg drum so now I'm down to doing just 1 load of washing per day.

Me: Really? I'm not sure how big my washing machine drum is.

We go into her laundry room and she lifts the lid on her sparkly new, 7.5kg drum washing machine. As we gaze into the impressively roomy appliance, we both suddenly realise how low we have stooped. Time for her to get stuck into publishing that book and for me to get a job.

BA (Hons) Housewifery

How do you housewives out there rate your housewifery skills? When my mother was expertly running our house I barely noticed what an amazing job she was doing, raising two children while my dad was frequently away on business, holding down a full time job when we went to school and running the house all at the same time. I noticed in the sense that she was always there to pick us up and drop us off, I noticed that my brother and I always felt loved and happy and warm but I just assumed that running the house was something that everyone did to the same standard. Now I'm the housewife snd how differently I see the situation.

Housewifery is essentially an administrative job. There are additional skills needed which are too numerous to mention individually but are as wide ranging as being able to cook and negociate with either a six month old or an adult with equal tact. Some time ago after university I did a few adminstrative jobs and secretarial work. Little did I know how useful these skills would become. Not everyone relishes the role of running the household. I was on a plane a few years ago with a friend and her second baby. She is an impressive artist, runs a gallery and is fearfully intelligent. She told me she finds being a housewife extremely difficult and that the job does not come easily to her at all.

Being a housewife is rewarding in all sorts of ways and it is good to be your own boss. I love cooking and find it relaxing and fulfilling (which is lucky as I seem to spend an extraordinary time in the kitchen) but the rest of the work involved is so unchallenging mentally I sometimes wonder if I'll ever be able to properly engage my brain again for long periods of time or even if I can will what's left of it be useful in any kind of commercial capacity?. As with millions of Mums I'd like to work but am unwilling to allow someone else to bring up our children just so I can scratch my mental itch. In an ideal world I'd work 2 days a week doing an intense, mentally challenging, staggeringly well paid job 5 minutes walk from my house while my parents looked after the children. In the real world I'll wait until the twins are in some kind of regular childcare and try and get a job doing whatever is available at the time locally.

On a more entertaining note we have a friend staying with us from London. Last night he and I were talking about some of the people out there who he might be interested in romantically. I found his take on these matters highly amusing. I told him about a friend of our family who has a much younger girlfriend than him but that she is also pretty boring. "Ah, and there it is. You get youth but the pay off is dullness" he tells me. Another of his interesting 'pay off' theories is that of the women in his age range available for romance and fun (30's ish) the prettier ones tend to have a child in tow. I'm looking forward to more of these conversations with him over the next week or so.