...since I last posted. Honestly, I have missed writing, but logistically , finding time to write has been the problem. Similarly, I started reading a book while we were away with family in August, and since we left I haven’t read another word. I am really enjoying that book as well.
In September I started a new job role. It’s 3 days a week, but as I am a teacher it takes far more then 3 days of my time, so when I’m not running around after children (& sometimes even while I am running around after children) I am also doing teacher-type paperwork. During those precious times when I am not doing either, I am trying to squeeze in exercise, cooking and doing household type things, or, frankly trying to turn my brain off for a few mins. Somehow, writing or reading doesn’t happen, and it should because it’s a thing I like doing. I just don’t have the brainpower left to do it.
Additionally, we no longer have a baby and a toddler, or even a toddler and a preschooler. We have a preschooler and a fully fledged school-aged child. Chronically exhausted or hyper-active, our new school-goer is a whole new type of challenge. She is either so shattered she can’t contain herself or so excited she can’t contain herself and there is very little in between. Post-school fall out is a very real thing people, and it is living in our house most days. Especially those long breakfast-&-after-school-club days. When they are dropped off and picked up in the dark. When as parents we don’t feed them a single meal that day apart from the 6.30pm post school snack which consists of literally anything they will eat and be able to stay awake while eating.
Meanwhile, my new role is proving a huge learning curve for me, leaving me feeling incapable and inadequate some days. I function within the realms of imposter syndrome most of the time and have to learn everything I do as if from scratch. There is very little space in my brain for anything else.
Oh but this is not a sob story! I have a husband who does has fair share of chores/parenting etc...this is not a ‘but I’m the woman so it’s harder for me’ thing, it is simply how it is at the moment, and as the person in part time employment, I am also the person doing the primary caregiving, so I bear the brunt of the responsibility of lunches and school bags and dance classes and snacktime.... it’s just that the tasks are never ending (to quote James Aicaster adulting is just jobs, jobs, jobs and then bedtime when you get to shout no more jobs and go to sleep until jobs start again...parenting is much the same, just with less sleep in between!)
I am terrible at new years resolutions, but if I had one this year it would be to try and put a bit more back into me. And into ‘us’ as a grown up couple. Not because I don’t like parenting but because I have been forgetting these bits, or at least not prioritising them. Mostly this means trying to win the sleep game (we have been losing for years) but also it means trying to read and write more, and get my head around what else makes me happy (other then sleep and biscuits!) I’ll keep you posted.