Goodbye Mr A

"She’s not walking yet? Well, she’s lazy, isn’t she? Lazy little girl."

My MIL is lucky she lives in South Africa and said the above line whilst on the other end of the phone. If she was here, I’d make her watch Zoe for a day just to see how lazy my child really is. No, she’s not walking yet, but she’s on her feet constantly, cruising round the living room, pulling things off chairs, tables, looking out for open doors that she can get through and see where they go, not happy to sit with her toys for more than a minute or two alone. Even when she’s eating, she’s wriggling and trying to look at every corner in the room. I get to 6:30 on a Wednesday, when she’s bathed, in bed and I’ve had her the whole day by myself and I am, quite frankly, exhausted. So no, walking might not be going on right now (although she’s not far off, just needs the confidence to do it), but she’s anything but lazy, you annoying bat!

I don’t have any time any more. I need about 30 hours in a day and even that might not be enough. I have work, Zoe, sleeping, eating, studying, knitting (got to finish a blanket for a Christmas present, so extra pressure), volunteering with the nct. It’s no wonder I’m getting through less than 100 pages a day reading. Work is mental. Our bosses won us a new contract but didn’t bother to check if we could do what they wanted at the speed they wanted and, guess what? We can’t but they say we have to, so it’s aching hands and stressed out workers all round. I’d leave if I didn’t need the money so badly.

The studying’s going well. I have it mapped out in my head where I want to be in 6 months, 12 months and 18 months time and, somehow, we’re gonna fit another baby into the whole thing. That means the next 3/4 months are gonna be mega busy with essay and report writing but I don’t want to get to the end of 2009 and still be ages off qualifying. It’ll be tight, because I have to attend certain study days which only happen every 6 months or so, but it’ll be worth it in the end, hopefully. I’m feeling ridiculously motivated at the moment and have a rough presentation in my head and notes for 1 essay, 1 report and the background done on my book reports. That’s half of level one right there. I’m also making arrangements to do the necessary visits and debriefs for the 2nd half of level one and need to be almost finished it all by next July, to convince my tutor that I should move up to level 2 in September. Like I said, tight and a lot of work, but totally worth it in the end.

That’s it. My life is a whirlwind, but, quite frankly, a dull whirlwind most of the time. We have parent’s evening for Zoe tonight at nursery, which I love cos they love her so much and then Christmas to prepare for. I’m not sure how much she’ll know what’s going on this year, but it’ll certainly more than last year.

Until there is a next time…

xx