Learning to Walk Again

Sometimes life hands you melons, and well, you all know the saying - if life hands you melons, you make...melonade?



No?

That's not it.

Today was a bit disappointing.  I had an interview for a job I kind of already do, and for whatever reason (maternity leave?  I'm rubbish at my job?  Someone is much better?) I didn't get it.

It's a bit of a smack in the face not getting hired to do the job you already do, and I'm not shy about saying that it kind of sucks.  But hey - melonade, folks, all the melonade I can drink.

It's a bittersweet moment for me.  Ever since I started my current job, I've been hoping to do it on a full time basis, but as I went to interview I kind of realised that if I got this job on a full time basis, I would have to do it FULL TIME.

I mean, yeah, money and stuff, but what about the kids?  What about school runs and watching T.V in the evening and homework and snatched evenings at the beach walking the dog?
And Owen is so small, and well, if I wasn't here, he's in full-time nursery or something. Poor kid.
I was scared of getting it.  And scared of not getting it.  And I'm a bit of a fate-ist.  I decided to let fate handle the outcome: what's for you won't go by you and all that.

So, while I'm gutted not to be pursuing my career on a full-time basis, there's a realisation too that it is probably for the best, the kids are still young yet and, well, I'm not wonderwoman.  And I cannot in fact 'have it all'.



Oddly, this is kind of refreshing.

And yet again, I find myself at another very interesting crossroads; the exciting and addictive part of being, what my husband affectionately calls, a 'butterfly'.

Not because I'm a total beaut (although I'm sure that's what he means...no?) but because I am in fact a bit of a fluttery butterfly when it comes to life.  I never am happy with just one flower - oh no, I like to consider my options, take a small sip of the nectar and move on to the next flower.

 

Now I am free to consider other things: further education, running some children's groups locally, sewing, reading, thinking about other possible career paths and so on.

When we had our third child, after getting through 7 years of raising the other two to school age, we got a lot of questions about why we were indeed having yet another baby: how we could even contemplate starting all over again?

The public reasons varied, depending on which day you caught us on, but the reason we gave each other in private was that it was exciting, it was fun, the possibilities and you know, we had done it twice before. We knew that we had struggled and it had been hard before, but that also, it was amazing and often hilarious and we had learned so much. An act borne out of pure love for each other and our family. We had experience. And with that came the knowledge that we would enjoy it all the more. And we are.  We are very lucky people.



But that crossroads...

It's a gift.  What will happen next?  Where will we end up?

It's amazing, this time last year I had absolutely no idea Owen would ever exist.  We had no idea we would be in a house of our own, let alone a gorgeous house in the countryside with fab neighbours and a red collie dog. 

If you'd told me that this time last year I would have exploded with the idea of it.

But here we are - drinking a shit-load of melonade with beer.  And tequila.  Hell, let's have a melonade party!

Change will come. Learning to walk again is fun.

Cheers!

Gremlins...

It's been a while.

I never meant to stay away for so long, but hey, life is never straightforward and is always happy to throw me a few curveballs.

First of all, Dave was working in a crazy-demanding job which saw our routine with work and kids and childcare and house stuff go completely to pot.  There were simply not enough hours in the day to complete everything.  Needless to say, any spare time was spent catching up with stuff we didn't have time for; piles of washing, dishes, school notes, appointments...life was crazy.

Thankfully he has a new job now and so far  (touch wood), it seems to be a much smoother ride.

There's a lot to be said for work/life balance.

While this was going on, we are also house hunting.  We are hoping to buy our first house in the very near future, so I have been trying to use free minutes perusing house-buying sites, hoping to stumble upon something cheap and cheerful.  Needless to say, it's a terrible time of year for it!

While scouring various domains, my poor wee laptop managed to pick up a few Malware gremlins.  It took a long time to get rid of them - in fact I am still sorting stuff out after having to restore my computer back a few months...grumble.

Add on to this the other pressing gremlin we discovered one day a wee while ago...

They always look very odd in the first photo - although, look!  Tiny wee hand!

Yes, check it out!  Turns out there's a wee guy/gal hiding out inside of me!

I have been feeling horrendous these last couple of months - hence the lack of blog - but I have to say, I am feeling a lot better now, even more so after going to the hospital and actually seeing a real-life baby on the screen! Paranoid-me likes to imagine I was imagining it.

So, I missed a couple of things; my 30th birthday wasn't quite as intense as I'd planned, but the way I was feeling, that was okay by me!  I had a really great meal with my family and had some really lovely gifts given and even delivered!  I certainly feel very loved indeed.

I've had a great time keeping this a secret from real life people too.  Some I told, knowing I'd need support as I felt so rubbish.  Some I told accidentally.  But others, as I have discovered this week when I told them, already knew.  Apparently the bump which I didn't think I had much of gave me away. Ha!

I am going to be huge.

But hey - it's (most definitely) the last time I am going to be doing this and I am determined to enjoy every last second of it.  Pregnancy hasn't been a positive experience for me, but now I am that bit older and wiser, I seem to have a different attitude towards it.  Things are so very different from when we had the boys, it's kind of nice to just not worry quite so much.

We told the boys on the day we got the scan - they were both ecstatic.  Tom really wants a sister.  And you know, sod's law, Ethan really wants a brother. One is going to be sorely disappointed!

So, yeah!

Bear with me - I might not be around so much in the next couple of weeks (although the sickness is fading and I'm getting some of my energy back - hurrah!) but I shall do my very best!