What to do in a hostage situation

Write a blog post. (It'll make sense later.)

I'm in Happy One's room giving him his bedtime feed and thought why not put this time to good use and do a quick blog post.

Actually the truth is that Happy One is practically asleep but I'm hiding because I can hear ructions coming from the other room, Miss Chief crying and doors slamming, and I'm trying to avoid either getting involved or being dragged into putting her to bed. This I don't mind in and of itself but by the sounds of things it could take a while and be a bit of a mish.

The thing is that this is a bit of a crazy house at the moment. I went back to work a couple of months ago and a few weeks prior to that Map Man started a full- time 6 month coursework-based post-grad course. He's writing a paper about 'las-ers', cluster computing and finding tall trees. Pretty cool stuff but not really an appropriate subject for this blog.

Miss Chief has been having various sleep issues over the same time period and longer. The latest is that she still occasionally loses the plot at bedtime and often finds it incredibly hard to wind down. But more pertinent is that once asleep she then wakes frequently and gets out of bed. This is happening almost every night and is often after we've gone to bed. She'll wander into our room and wake us up. When we bring her back to her own room she says "but I'll be all by myself". (I hope this isn't all my fault for having a "sleepover" in my bed one night whilst Toby was away - he told me this would happen. It may well have contributed but I don't think it's a direct cause.)

At the same time she is continuing to amaze us with her wit, comprehension, vocabulary, creativity and imagination. Her development in these areas, and more, just isn't slowing. I reckon I'd have trouble sleeping if I had all that going on in my head.

Meanwhile Happy One is just a baby, 9 months old and dealing with all the usual stuff that the little critters have to deal with. The odd Wonder Week here and there. (We made it through Week 36 World of Categories (a horse can be an animal in a field or a picture in a book and is not the same as a large dog) and now we've got Week 44 World of Sequences (put spoon in bowl, scoop cereal onto spoon, move spoon to mouth, open mouth ... and so on, you get the drift) starting this week at 41 weeks.) And all the amazing milestones they bring: he's crawling, cruising round the furniture, standing by himself, playing peekaboo, picking up ever smaller morsels and working on his pincer grip, chatting away in his baby talk, sort of signing, he even clapped his hands but it was a bit of a "blink and you miss it" moment. He's incredibly funny, loves to copy Miss Chief, laughs a lot, gets annoyed if he has to wait too long for a breastfeed or if you take something from him, loves his food, and is generally a lot of fun to be around. He is also getting massive. I bought him a little hoodie for when the weather cools down today. It suggested size 0 for a 10kg baby. He is a little bit under that but I picked up the next size up anyway and was surprised that it fit him. It's a little large but not overly so.

When he's not having a major mental leap or a growth spurt, he's teething. He's not a great teether. He goes off his food and wants extra breastfeeds. Yay for me. (I love breastfeeding but not all the time.) He has 6 teeth now and we're in a teething break which is good. He still loves his sleep but sleep training has gone to poo. I still breastfeed him to sleep at night and when he's not teething he wakes once for a feed around 3 or 4am. During the day we have varying degrees of success in getting him to sleep but it pretty much always results in doing the Cot Dance - pacing round his room with him in our arms, rocking and jiggling him slightly then gradually lowering him into the cot and trying to get our arms out from under him without waking him. I'm going to design a new mother and baby exercise class based upon it. Watch this space.

The thing is at the moment it's all about maximising sleep in this house. Let's worry about bad habits later when things are less crazy. To that end my next step with The Chief is to replace her toddler bed with a single bed. I have a base. I just need to paint it (it's black) and buy a mattress. I would just let her sleep in our bed when she wakes up but Map Man can't sleep with her in the bed. I figure if she has a bigger bed one of us can either get in with her or swap.

As for me, because surely someone cares how I'm doing, right? Oh good. Well I'm finding it hard to find time to exercise. I do the occasional Zumba workout if I get up before the kids (ha!) or get them both sleeping at the same time (Chief sleeps about every other day now). Sometimes I get to the pool but that's rare. And I had my bike serviced the other week so I could ride to work. Which I've done once. Basically I'm still establishing a routine.

I'm enjoying being back at work. I don't really know where I'm heading with that but it's good to be contributing and feeling like a normal grown up a couple of days a week. A part time working mother is a bit like a person with multiple personality syndrome. It can be hard to switch between the two roles. I often go to work with rusks and spare undies (size 3) in my handbag. But I work really close to the beach and only 5 minutes drive from home in swanky new offices. I feed Happy One once a
day before his lunchtime sleep while Map Man swims in the ocean. Tomorrow if the weather isn't too bad then we're trying a new routine of meeting at the pool. Map Man will swim whilst I feed Happy One and then I'll do some laps. I haven't really been taking all the breaks I'm entitled to as I've been settling back in but I think I'm starting to find my rhythm now. We're hoping to get Happy One into daycare one day a week soon. That'll be interesting as he won't get his daytime feed (he gets 2 on a non workday). As it is he's all over me as soon as I walk through the door and won't leave me alone until I feed him.

[Update: now I'm in Chief's room massaging her feet while she (hopefully, please soon) falls asleep. How did this happen? It's very hard - and slow - typing with left hand while massaging with right (or vice versa for that matter). A bit like patting your head and rubbing your tummy. I keep getting the two mixed up. Chief's a bit perturbed but my iPhone seems nice and relaxed. At least I had the presence of mind to bring my wine in too.]

Ok where was I? Oh that's right. Me. So yeah. Work good. Two days perfect for now. Breastfeeding and working still not easy but pretty good really. Aside from that I've been baking a lot and getting fat (compared to my wedding photos anyway). And as soon as I get out of here (Chief's room. Currently hostage.) I'm going to sew Alvin's arms on (soft toy I'm making for my nephew's birthday. Which was last week. Yeah. I'm so on the ball and organised.)

Just for fun (and because I'm still captive) I'll close with a summary of Happy One's routine at 9 months. It's very flexible.

3-4am : breastfeed. Takes about 15-20 mins. Unless I fall asleep.
6am : wake
7am : breakfast.
8am : breastfeed
8.30 : sleep for about an hour
11am : breastfeed
12pm : lunch
1pm : sleep for 1.5-2 hours
3pm : breastfeed
5pm : bathtime
5.30 : dinner (usually followed by another quick dunk in the bath)
6.30 : breastfeed
7.00 : sleep

I've no idea whether this is normal. Most 9 month olds are probably down to 3 milk feeds a day but I don't care. If there's one thing I learnt when Chief was a baby it's not to stress about weaning. It'll happen when the time is right. Obviously work days are a bit different. I feed him before I leave. Then around 1130-12ish and again around 5 or 6pm depending on when I get home. He also gets offered morning and afternoon tea if he's awake when Chief has hers. In short he spends about 70% of his waking hours eating or drinking.

Sheesh this is a long post. No one's going to read this far. I could say anything now and no one would ever know.

[And I'm still massaging 3-year old feet. Or feets as Chief would say.]

Blog post in stylee of Facebook status updates

To trim a potentially long story down a wee bit, here's the thing: I have many things to blog about but no time to do it. And I often think of many Facebook status updates at once or in a short time frame but don't post them because I don't want to be Facebook spam. So I thought why not kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and blog my status updates instead? This could take off, I tell ya. Before you know it the entire blogosphere will be made up of collections of mini posts. Postlets perhaps.

So here for the first time ever (maybe) I present to you a blog post in the snippet stylee of Facebook status updates. (Random thought interjection: Smash Hits writers would have hated iPhone auto-correct.)

Meltdown from Miss Chief in the middle of the night. Never had to deal with one of those before. Woke everyone in the house. And probably a fair few of the neighbours too. Not the best timing just hours before a 7am start so I could get to Bris this morning. Ug!

OMG! Had to leave my laptop at work last night so someone else could do my job whilst I went down to Bris for a last minute training course today. My home laptop died a few months ago. I feel naked and exposed. (And besides which it's really hard to write a post on an iPhone. My thumb hurts.)

I have the most wonderful husband in the world ever. He drove me down to Bris today so I could attend a training course I only found out about yesterday and brought my baby to me during the lunch break so I could feed him.

My husband may be wonderful, and I love him dearly, but it drives me mad that his idea of tidying up is to collate random objects into random piles and leave them in various random locations around the house (e.g. kitchen bench, garage floor).

Came back from holidays on Monday to find someone had smashed eggs on our garage window at the front of the house. I'm rather excited about this as I have lots of time on my hands and I love cleaning and had, in fact, just been wondering to myself what I was possibly going to do this weekend. Yes you do detect a major note of sarcasm.

Enjoyed a rare glass of Bullmers (cider, on tap) this evening down in a pub in the smoke (well in a beer garden at Southbank) until Happy One (soon to be renamed Grabby One, I think) grabbed my glass and pulled it over. Spilled the lot. Sigh.

Got two mozzie bites in the city. What's all that about? (Actually that was in the beer garden in the park at Southbank too but still...)

Happy One (soon to be renamed Houdini) totally escaped from his pram walking back to the car tonight. We just about managed to contain him in the pram (he has fallen out of it before though) but he broke free of the restraints and was climbing all over.

Noisy teenagers congregating next door. Not really what I need right now.

My ability to write intelligently or humourously has deteriorated significantly since having children. Was fine after the first baby but that last one pushed me over the edge. Couldn't wait to catch up with friends at a wedding last weekend but then couldn't think of anything to say to them. Totally brain dead.

Noisy teenagers taking the piss now with loud music. Only a few weeks since they last had a noisy party which I didn't mind as it doesn't happen often. Totally annoyed now though. And so so tired. Maybe we'll get our own back later if Chief decides to have another (ridiculously) early morning tantrum. (Although it has just occurred to me that maybe this is our payback for this morning's early morning tantrum, which doesn't seem fair really given that I didn't actually have the tantrum and the Chief is sleeping through the row (which is a relief to be honest). Perhaps I will have a tantrum.)

Whatever. I'm tired and my forearm is aching from using the iPhone so I'm going to attempt to go to sleep. (Hope the photos appear in some kind of logical location. I can't work out where they are on this thing.)

My So Called Life

Just once I would like to sleep in until 7am and then get up to enjoy a relaxing breakfast with my children and husband and a hot cup of coffee.

Instead if I'm lucky enough to sleep in until 7 I rise to a tired and hungry baby who wonders where I've been for the last three hours. My cereal goes soggy as I either feed the baby, or make my sandwiches, or get the Chief a drink, or change a dirty nappy. If I'm lucky enough to get a cup of coffee I might grab a sip before I have to take The Bairn to bed. And often the only time Wee Bairn isn't also known as The Happy One is when he's tired. So I can be there for a while consoling and cajoling my little midget and jiggling him to sleep. Then my coffee is cold. And before I know it, if it's a daycare day for Chief, or a work day for me, one or the other of us has to leave the house. And I've barely spent two minutes with her.

And at which point in my life did 7am become a sleep in anyway? I remember the days when I'd walk home from a night club at that time, having danced the entire night to awesome DJs like The Chemical Brothers, Judge Jools and FatBoy Slim. Now the only dancing I get to do is at home in the middle of the afternoon to The Wiggles and Justine Clarke, with a baby in my arms and a pre-schooler at my feet.

Oh how things change. Those of you who knew me Before Children will know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm still the same old me, only I now turn down the opportunity to go to a Full Moon Dance on a rare occasion we have babysitters in town, in favour of just grabbing a walk or a coffee with Other Half so we can actually spend some time talking to one another. Not that I don't want to go dancing. I really really do. I mean really. But I'm so tired I just can't be bothered to get all dressed up and then spend another night not talking to OH about how the hell we're going to get the Chief to go to sleep before 8.30pm every night. I just want to get out of the house as soon as Bairn is asleep and let someone else stress over whether Chief is awake or getting enough sleep or not. I'll probably regret not going, and maybe I'll change my mind. But I doubt it. Full moons happen once a month, right? Next time, then.

Meanwhile I'm going to have the Valentine's evening we never had (because it's all about the Chief in our house now) and an early night where I dream that when I wake up in the morning (no earlier than 7) to the smell of freshly brewed coffee I will go to the dining room to find well rested, happy children eating their breakfast. And I'll sit down and join them with my crunchy cereal and hot coffee and we'll plan our day together.

Paid Parental Leave Irritation

I just had to blog about this because I'm mildly irritated.

Okay, so brief background. Last year, having not intended to have another baby for at least a year, I took the brave decision to leave my job of almost 7 years at the university. Basically, I had an offer of part-time work for an organisation that did not suck the life force from my body on entering the room. Everything about this new place and the people in it told me it was the right thing to do. There were probably only 3 things holding me back:

1. Familiarity, better the devil you know, however you want to put it.
2. Security and stability of a large-scale public organisation.
3. The fantastic maternity benefits of 6 months full pay over the course of 12 months.

Well, as you all know I took the leap and I have had no regrets. As I said to Toby at the time, I couldn't put a baby that didn't yet exist, and for all we knew might never exist, before the one I already had. It was more important to me that I remove myself from the stressful environment I was in, find a vocation I truly enjoyed and maximise my time with my little girl.

Two months later I was pregnant. Okay so I always knew it was likely to happen at some stage and despite the loss of oodles of dollars in maternity pay I still have no regrets.

On 1st January 2011 the Australian Government introduced Paid Parental Leave. This is basically the equivalent of 18 weeks pay at the minimum wage. To qualify you have to have worked 330 hours over 10 out of the 13 months prior to the child's birth. This is basically just over 1 day a week.

So when discussing maternity leave, and in particular the fact that I don't get paid leave where I work now, people point out how good it is that I am eligible for the government's scheme. Don't get me wrong, it's great. EXCEPT that I am no longer eligible for the Baby Bonus. When I had Phoebe I got my employer's paid leave plus the Baby Bonus. If I didn't work then I would still be entitled to the Baby Bonus. In fact, I can choose to take the Baby Bonus instead of the Paid Parental Leave if I so desire. The government's Family Assistance website even provides a comparison calculator to help you decide which you're better off going for.

So I did that. According to the tool, which is just an estimate, we'll be a whopping $1,347.00 (approximately) better off with the Paid Parental Scheme than we would be with the Baby Bonus. And the government has made such a big deal about how great this is for families, working mothers and employers. Er... excuse me? In which world is $1,347(or £837 in real money) going to make that much difference to whether (and how long) women can afford to take leave to nurture and look after their babies? Seriously? I don't want to sound ungrateful but Ms "I can get the best job in the country if I steal it from a very nice man" Gillard, stop dressing this up to be something it isn't.

And that's all.

Poetry: Today

I stumbled across this poem this morning and thought I'd share it. I wrote this soon after Phoebe started daycare. I don't think it needs any other explanation really.


I pick you up and look into your tired eyes
I kiss your forehead and wonder have you cried
Today

I hear your stories of adventure and fun
And wonder at all of the hearts you've won
Today

I think of the many hours since I last kissed you
And wonder if you know how much I've missed you
Today

I hear of all your latest falls and fears
And how someone else kissed your tears
Away

You are my generous gift to the world
My gorgeous, funny sweet little girl.
How I wish that you were mine alone
And I could keep you safe at home
Today

The babysitter

A few weeks back my boss asked me if I could work one extra day a week until Christmas. From home, if I so wished.

Being the dutiful and enthusiastic employee that I am I told him, "not on your nelly mister. I'm a full-time mother when I'm not at work." Which makes me wonder whether I'm a part-time mother when I am at work. How does that work? Full-time stay-at-home mums are full-time mums. But mothers who work part-time are still full-time mums. No wonder we feel so stressed and busy all the time. And what about those women who work full-time and are full-time mums? I'm not saying one situation is better than the other, or that one lot have it easier than the others. All I'm saying is how can you be a part-time mother? You're either a mum or you're not. Unless you only get the kids on the weekend, which is kind of part-time. Either way, I'm happy with my lot. I don't think I could be a full-time anything (stay-at-home mother, employee) whilst also being a full-time mum.

But back to my story. Of course I didn't say that to my boss. I was just checking you were paying attention. No, I told him I'd love to help out. After thinking long and hard all weekend about how I was going to fit it in, of course.

Well, therein lies the challenge. There are a lot of other things going on in my life right now, not least Christmas and lounge room renovations and some other exciting things that I will no doubt blog about very soon. I was just about fitting all my chores into Phoebe's sleep time. How now to also add an extra 8 hours of work a week?

Firstly, I employed my cleaner for an extra hour a week to do various jobs, like any laundry or ironing that I haven't got to, wiping down the leather lounge suite, emptying the bins, putting the groceries away, cleaning the kitchen and putting Phoebe's clothes away. She only ever stays for an extra half hour (and charges me accordingly) so this has been a massive help.

So that got rid of a lot of boring domestic chores that she can do whilst I take Phoebe to swimming. Then I pondered whether I should get someone else to look after Phoebe for a while. I didn't want to pack her off to daycare for an extra day. I think 3 days is quite enough and I really enjoy our morning activities. Grandparents were out as Grandpa was embedded in his work and Nan was committed to picking Phoebe's cousins up from school at the times I would want her looked after.

So I asked around for a babysitter and a friend recommended a rather lovely lady by the name of Louisa. She came to see us the very next day and we both thought she was very nice. She then went on holiday for a while and finally came to do her first babysitting job for us this week.

I was a bit worried about how it was all going to go. Phoebe had been acting most peculiarly for the last couple of days. She was a bit whingy and clingy and I wasn't at all sure what was going on with her. At swimming that morning she'd refused to do a lot of the activities and whinged whenever her head went under the water. And then having coffee afterwards she sat on the floor next to the toys staring at some other customers with a glazed expression on her face before lying face down on the cold ground. And she wasn't eating much either.

But I decided to get Louisa along anyway and to play it by ear so that Phoebe could get used to the new, if temporary, routine. Well what a surprise. Once we were all settled in I got a full 1 1/2 hours of work done WITH NO INTERRUPTIONS! I was amazed. I wasn't sure how it would go with us all being in the house. I thought Phoebe would pester me and whinge but she had a great time playing with Louisa and showing her all her toys. I popped my head in now and then to give her bits of food and they went out to the shops for a while. But all in all it was a resounding success. We shall see what next week brings.

Phoebe gets ready for work

The other morning Toby was in the kitchen packing Phoebe's daycare bag. I was in the en-suite doing my hair and make-up. Phoebe took one of my handbags from the cupboard and threw it over her shoulder. She took a basket full of buttons and put that on her other shoulder. She marched into the kitchen.

"Kiss," she said to Toby, and puckered up.

He bent down and gave her a kiss. She pushed the handbag further onto her shoulder.

"Bye bye," she said, waved at him and trotted off to the en-suite.

"Kiss," she said to me.

I gave her a kiss.

"Bye bye," she said, waved and left the room.

I don't know where she gets it from.

Weaning: done!

Why have booby milk when there's chocolate ice cream?

I thought I'd give a quick update on the whole weaning thing.

In my last post, almost three weeks ago, I reported that it had been 45 hours since I last breastfed Phoebe, and pondered whether I'd ever do it again.

Well, I haven't. It's quite amazing. I haven't offered and she hasn't asked. Well, a few times she's made her milky sign but she's been quite happy with a cuddle, or a cup of milk, or a story, or snack. The time was obviously just right for both of us. In fact, dropping the last feed was much easier than dropping the morning feed.

I bought Phoebe a new no-spill sippy cup the other day and she now has a cup of milk at breakfast and supper. She also takes milk to daycare for afternoon tea.

For a week or two after we stopped feeding I didn't bath with Phoebe. I didn't want her to launch herself upon my naked boobies. A few nights ago we had our first bath together since stopping. She was interested in my boobs but not overly so. She cuddled and kissed them but didn't try to feed. It was as though she could sort of remember a relationship with them but not the details. Funnily, she also kissed Toby's nipples when she was in the bath with him. Funny girl.

So that's that and I have to say I'm amazed. There have been so many times that I've stressed about dropping a feed and at the end of last year I was really worried about whether I should try and wean before I returned to work. Then, after weaning all but two feeds, things seemed to stretch out for so long I worried that she'd be breastfeeding until she started school. I probably fed her for longer than necessary as it became such a part of our routine. As a working mother, routine is very important. If I didn't feed her before breakfast then she'd want to feed before I left for work. By this time she was covered in food and I was ready for work. So I'd offer first thing to avoid a messy late-for-work situation.

In hindsight all the worrying was unnecessary. When nature is allowed to run its course things just happen the way they're supposed to. It is difficult to surrender to that in this modern world where we are confined by society's expectations, limitations and schedules. Working may have made it easier to wean as for much of the time we were apart and I couldn't feed her. On the other hand it may have dragged things out for longer than necessary as Phoebe needed it for comfort, to make up for not seeing me so much, and I clung to the routine. In the end it didn't matter as it happened when we were both ready. I never got fed up with feeding Phoebe but I was ready to let it go. And she doesn't seem to have missed it much. It was one of the loveliest experiences I have ever had but man, I'm pleased to have my body back.

Working Mother: Weaning

So, we're sort of weaning.

I say "sort of" because there's no plan as such, we're not going cold turkey and we're trying to fit it into our lives, which sometimes means feeding when perhaps we don't need to.

For a while now I've been meaning to follow the La Leche League advice of "Don't offer, don't refuse" but on work day mornings this always seems too hard. I just want to feed her and then get on with getting ready otherwise there's a chance she'll decide she wants to feed when I'm sitting in the car and about to drive off. Technically, it shouldn't really matter as by then I'm out of there and it's someone else's problem. But there's nothing worse than leaving your child crying in someone else's arms.

There have been a few mornings when she's had breakfast and then either asked for a breastfeed (using her milky sign) or I've just given her one out of habit and to avoid the aforementioned situation. Which, incidentally, has never actually happened other than in my head.

Yesterday, however, I decided to risk being late and just see what would happen if I didn't offer her a feed. We were sitting having breakfast and Toby's mum was putting Phoebe's lunch bag together. Phoebe saw her get her milk ready and indicated that she'd like some. She drank about 1/3 of a cup! And then she didn't ask for a feed. So I went to work without giving her one.

When I picked her up she'd just woken up from a nap and was quite refreshed. I gave her a rusk to chomp on and she was quite happy until shortly after we got home and she started to fret. She has a funny cry that she makes that's a cross between her excited laugh-noise (she also makes this when we're hunting for Diggedy, her favourite toy, or when she's just about to brush her teeth) and the milky cry she had as a newborn. She just kept making this noise, and, trying to follow the LLL advice I kept saying "Use your signs, Phoebe. Tell Mammy what you want." She was obviously getting frustrated so in the end, knowing darn well what it was that she wanted, I fed her.

Still, I was proud of the fact that we'd missed our morning feed. She didn't have a bedtime feed that night either, which is quite normal for Wednesdays as I go to Zumba and Toby gets her ready for bed.

Then last night, she woke at 1.30am and asked for milk, using her sign this time. I fed her and she still played up a bit but I went back to bed and she settled after a minute or so.

This morning she asked for milk again so I fed her before work. I'd already slept in and ended up being almost an hour late. This work thing is really starting to become hard but I'm scared to resign because we'll be poor.

Anyway, the weaning thing will obviously be a bit up and down - on Monday she asked for milk at lunchtime and had three feeds! There are clearly going to be times that she wants a bit extra and there'll be times when she's tired and frustrated and won't ask for it properly so I'll have to effectively offer it to her. And there'll be times when I'm tired and not thinking straight and I feed her when I probably don't need to. For example, this morning I could have offered her milk from a cup before breastfeeding her.

But yesterday was the first time she'd ever had just one feed in a day. If you can really count it as only being one, given that she woke in the night. And, if it makes me late for work or tired, well, they're just going to have to deal with that then, aren't they?

I'll miss our breastfeeding relationship. As I've said before, it's so special and intimate and is unique to a mother and her child. It's one aspect where a mother can't be replaced even if she's at work and other people are looking after her child. But I think it's about time for us to let it go. We're settling into our work-daycare routine (even if some days are harder than others), she's 14 months, which is a great length of time to have been breastfed, especially as it'll probably be another few months before we've fully stopped. Plus, some days she just mucks around and I think she just has the feed out of habit. I suspect by the time we actually stop I'll be more than ready. And hopefully, so will she.

Working Mother: She knows the drill

Phoebe seems to be getting used to our new routine of me going to work on Tuesdays whilst she stays at home with Daddy. This morning she could obviously tell it was a Tuesday by the fact that I was pottering around getting ready, wearing work clothes and putting on jewellery and make-up. As I came out of the bedroom she waved goodbye to me. Super cute.

In sickness and in health: Mother Guilts, and The Debate of the Working Mother

For a while now I've been meaning to post an update on what it's like to be a working mother. Especially after my many rants on the issue.

Generally, it hasn't been too bad. Actually it's been pretty good. Apart from the weight of the imminent five-day week hanging heavy on my shoulders. I have managed to persuade my boss to let me work four days a week until the end of April, based primarily on some back problems I've had lately. Same old story: pelvic instability flared up again due to lack of mobility. Basically I wasn't doing enough exercise after getting back to work and sitting in a chair all day made things even worse. That's on the mend now but I asked for the extra time to make sure that I can fit activity into my week. If I have a bad back I'm no good to them or Phoebe. So, the boss said "yes, but that's your lot".

So that's that then. Absolutely no chance of part-time work. Unless, of course I take up the matter with HR but I suspect that would do more harm than good so I'm not going to.

Phoebe settled in well at daycare, and quickly too. She has bonded with her carers, loves the toys and books there and gets to go and play with the older children in the late afternoon, which she seems to like. She's been a happy, well-adjusted little baby and has done us proud. She no longer cries when we pick her up or drop her off and even dropped her late afternoon breastfeed. She still has sleep issues but seems to cope okay. Toby and I have often commented on how her adaptability has made the transition of me going back to work, and putting her in daycare, so much easier than it could have been.

Then she got sick and everything changed.

Last Thursday night I was on the phone to me skin and blister getting all the lowdown on the birth of her beautiful 3 day-old son, Ben, when I heard Phoebe cry. It was about 9pm, an unusual time for her to wake, and she sounded strange. Eventually Toby called me in and my poor baby was sitting in her cot, pale, crying, very upset, having vomited raspberry jelly on her sheets. First attack of the Mother-Guilts for having fed her the jelly in the first place. It's a rare treat and she'd been such a glutton at tea-time I thought she'd appreciate some dessert.

Then I wondered whether she was sick because after her bath, I'd come out of her room to find her sitting on the kitchen floor eating from the pile of dropped food that I'd swept up. Second attack of the Mother-Guilts for having not actually put the food pile in the bin and not having watched her like a hawk.

Oh, and of course I felt guilty because I'd been half listening to her cry, half listening to my sister telling me about the midwife popping a water sac next to Ben's head, and at the same time thinking, "maybe she'll go back to sleep in a minute". Even though I knew it was an unusual time for her to wake up and she sounded strange.

Anyway, I comforted Phoebe and checked her nappy whilst Toby changed her sheets but she wouldn't stop crying. Eventually I took her to our room for a change of scene where she threw up again. Next attack of the Mother-Guilts when I realised I felt slightly relieved that it wasn't the jelly that had made her sick.

We knew friends who'd recently had a 24 hour vomiting bug so we figured that's what it was and Toby contacted them for advice. The best advice they gave us was to give her water from a spoon at regular intervals. Anything more than that and she'd throw up again. She vomited about 5 times over the next four hours and retched every 15-20 minutes. Finally I managed to get her in her cot but she still woke up crying every hour and just needed me to rub her back before she'd fall asleep again. I slept on her bedroom floor for part of the night but even when I got to my own bed I was alert to the slightest noise she made. She was unwell for the whole of the next day and slept on me for most of it, vomiting another couple of times. Once when she tried to eat a corner of my toast and again when she grabbed my water bottle and gulped it down.

The following day both Toby and I got the same bug and were also horribly ill. It probably lasted about 2-3 days for us but Phoebe is still off her food and now has a nasty cold.

And to put all this in context, on Thursday I had my first attack of the guilts with regards to dropping Phoebe off at daycare. She was really really clingy with me and still didn't have her usual gluttonous appetite back. The previous day I'd had to work late so I got Toby's mum to pick her up from daycare. I still went to zumba so I only really saw her for an hour that night. The night before that Toby had put Phoebe to bed. So basically I think she was missing me.

I knew she'd be fine once she got to daycare and I really didn't feel comfortable taking another day off work as I'd missed two in the last week. Still, she was happy if I was giving her lots of attention and unhappy otherwise so I knew she just wanted some time with me. It probably didn't help that Toby's mum was there and, naturally, was concerned about Phoebe. She was very tired and due for a nap but she often is around the time we take her to daycare. I felt torn but took her in anyway and asked them to call me if she was miserable.

Ever since then I've felt awful, especially as the next day at daycare she "didn't have a good day", and now she's got this yucky cold, which was obviously ramping up on Thursday morning. I can remember what it's like to be a little girl, not quite feeling yourself, and just wanting your mammy. My mammy was always there for me when I was unwell. Apart from the time I had earache and she had to go to university and I ended up lying on the floor at Gran's house, with my ear on a hot water bottle, watching the telly through a mirror. But I was probably 12 by then. Not that it matters. I mean, I'm 34 now but I still wished my mam had been there to look after me when I was sick last weekend. It just broke my heart that I couldn't be there for my little girl.

I know this is just a blip. Phoebe will get better and she will want to go to daycare again but it has just opened up the can of worms again. I'm sure I can't work full-time but I'm also nervous about working part-time. I mean if I'm only there three days a week anyway then taking three days off because one or both of us is sick means I miss a whole week. I can't half do a job. I'm either committed or I'm not. That's not to say that my job is more important than my baby. Absolutely not.  Obviously if she's sick or injured I'm there for her 100%. But there are some days when it isn't black and white. Days when she's just not in the mood. She just wants a quiet day with her mammy. She's just feeling a bit sensitive or tired. How can I justify keeping her home from daycare and me home from work on those days? I mean, it's not like she has a lot of them but still... It is hard for me that I can't be there for her on those days. (Although it's possibly a good thing as they're exhausting and can drive you a bit balmy.)

Another reason I'm nervous about part-time work is that it means leaving my current job and all the nice things that go with it. I've been there for 6 years. I like the people I work with. I enjoy the work for the most part. I know the environment very well. I understand the business. I know how my clients work. I'm confident. I get paid well, I get good superannuation (pension). It's close to home. I can ride my bike there and pick Phoebe up on the way home. It's a nice environment. Whilst a move might be to something better, I could also end up much further away, meaning that I see even less of Phoebe on the days that I'm working. I might end up having to contract, which means I won't get paid for the days that Phoebe is sick, and I wouldn't get super.

I went to university so that I could build a good life for myself and my future family but I really didn't think about how that might work. I guess I thought I'd have saved lots of money by now. And I didn't really understand how I would feel. So, the jury is out, the debate is ongoing. Nothing has changed. Although I do think small amounts of daycare are good for a child with Phoebe's disposition, I still don't think that long days, or lots of days are good. She's still too young and is there longer than I'd like.

I currently feel like I can't win. If I don't work, I'm not bringing in any money, plus I don't think it would be that good for my mental health. I was already starting to get demotivated at the end of last year. There's no hurry to do anything when you're at home every day. You can always do it tomorrow. If I do work, I'm not there for Phoebe when she needs me. I mean, Toby can be there for her, and maybe it wouldn't make any difference to her which of her parents is there, but I suspect that isn't the case. Toby's relationship with Phoebe is slightly different, probably because he didn't spend ten months at home with her, he didn't grow her inside of him and he hasn't breastfed her for the last 13 months. It doesn't matter how much equality we want, or get, between the sexes, fundamentally we are very different. And we offer different things to our children as a result. And that's a good thing. But when the nurturer, the soother, the parent who really comforts you and cuddles you when you're sad or sick, the parent who just lets you feel that way and sits with you through it, instead of trying to cheer you up or distract you with toys, when that parent can't be there for a child, that's not a good thing.

And I suppose this is never-ending Debate of the Working Mother.

To work or not to work: is that really the question?

"We are engaged, when we become mothers, in a new way of being in the world that involves another human being, where once there was merely the long shadow of the letter I."

Anne Manne, Motherhood: How should we care for our children?

Ah! The great Work-Life Balance debate. Once again it has reared its ugly head and I am embroiled in it.

After broaching the subject of my Return To Work with my boss the other day I have found myself at something of a crossroads. I want to Return To Work part time. My boss won't let me. There we were, two women on either side of a desk and of our child-rearing years; one of us being forced to choose between caring for her child and maintaining her career; the other remembering what it was like to be in exactly that position but being forced to put her organisation first. Each could see the situation from the other's perspective and understand her standpoint but that didn't change the fact that neither of us could really give the other what she wanted.

My boss was very understanding of my desire to work part-time. I simply do not want to place Phoebe in childcare 5 days a week. She was the same with her daughter and took 2 1/2 years out of the workforce before her husband took over as full-time carer. Added to the old childcare debate, which I could quite easily bore you with once again, is the sense that I don't have the mental timeshare to devote 37 hours a week to work. At the moment I can't even find the time to clearly think about what my options are for next year and, for that matter, what I might actually want to do. My boss suggested I might want to look for part-time work outside of the organisation or that maybe she could somehow delay my return, depending upon the project she needed me to come back to work on. To their credit, my managers had planned around me working in the area that I enjoy working in; I had been worried that I'd return to the crap that no one else wants to do. Instead it seems that there might actually be quite a good project to come back to work on next year.

The Director's response wasn't entirely unexpected but the alternative to working part-time was unthinkable so I chose to do exactly that: not think about it. Instead I convinced myself that I would be able to work part-time and that it wasn't worth thinking about what I would do if I couldn't. It seems the power of positive thinking isn't actually that powerful after all. Apparently it doesn't change reality, or other people's opinions. Either that or I just wasn't doing it right. Anyhow, I felt okay after our conversation. I knew she'd take that stance at the very least as a matter of principle. A precedent had been set for not allowing part-time work within the department and a few employees had left for that reason in the past. I didn't really think I'd be the exception to this rule. It is a difficult environment to have part-time workers especially as much of the work is support-based. I have worked on a project with a part-timer in a previous job and I found it very frustrating on the days that she wasn't at work. It occurred to me that this is why very few women, especially young experienced women in their thirties, work in IT. Most women are either young graduates, or mature women with their child-bearing years behind them. As my boss said, "it isn't very family friendly". If they want to recruit more women into the industry, as they seem to try to do every few years, they really need to shake this up and sort it out. I shudder when I think of the lost potential of women my age, who are degree-qualified with upwards of a decade's experience who "choose" not to work so that they can look after their children. We struggle to recruit employees with the required level of experience so it seems quite insane to me to force those women to make such a choice when surely we could all benefit from designing our teams and work in such a way that allows them to be employed part-time.

Toby and I went for lunch and talked at length about the various options open to us. I could get work elsewhere, maybe contracting work. I could see it as an opportunity to change careers, perhaps start earning money from my writing. Or, I could go back to work full-time and he could work part-time. After all, my maternity leave is worth a fair amount of money to us if we'd like to have another baby.

The following day, however, I lost myself. I went off to my mum's group and felt really out of it, like I didn't belong there for some reason. My dilemma was filling my head yet I couldn't think about it. I couldn't think straight about anything.

Then Phoebe's sleep issues, which we'd been working on that week, picked up. More on that later. Could she have been picking up on my anxiety? Whatever the reason, it did not help matters to have her skipping sleeps, catnapping, waking up at 5am and taking 40 minutes to an hour to settle at night. It all became way too much for me. We went to a party with my colleagues on Saturday night and had to leave after less than two hours to get Phoebe home to bed. It was so frustrating. I realised I actually missed them. My initial reaction after the chat with my boss had been to leave work. Now I wasn't so sure. How could I just abandon that part of me, the person I was before I was a mother? First and foremost I am a mother but I'm still the IT professional I was before as well. Why can't I be both? Why should I have to choose? Why should I have to spread myself so thin that I can't do either job particularly well?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not kidding myself that I'm the first woman ever to experience this dilemma. Professional and working women have been going through this ever since the feminists achieved so-called equality for us. I have seen countless acquaintances returning to work part-time and just assumed I'd do the same. I don't think I personally know a woman with a very young child who works full time. Why did no one tell me that IT was not conducive to raising a family before I became qualified in it? Would I have even listened if they had in my feminist career-oriented youth? I guess deep-down I knew it but I just thought things would work themselves out. My husband would support me, or I'd stick my children into childcare. Believe me, no one is more surprised than me about my sudden stance on this. Nothing prepared me for how I'd feel about someone else looking after my daughter rather than me. If I'm honest, even the thought of her father replacing me as her full-time carer is a bit disturbing. And let's face it, I will probably still be the person who puts her to bed at night, comforts her when she wakes in the night or when she's sick. But I also hadn't read much about childcare and its effects on babies and really young children. I'm still researching that but so far what I have read does not give me comfort.

So I'm in turmoil. On the one hand I miss the old me, I long for a proper tea break and to go to the loo without an overtired baby following me on hands and knees calling "mamamama". I miss my colleagues, I miss my work. I worry about money. I feel put out at the thought of giving up superannuation, holiday pay and maternity leave. On the other hand I love being a mum and spending my days with my daughter. I worry what state the house will be in if I'm working when I can barely keep it ticking over whilst I'm at home. I listen to Toby and his brother discussing the politics at work, complaining about demanding clients and unrealistic deadlines and I remember the crap that I had to put up with at times and how over my job I was before I was pregnant, how for years I yo-yo'd between being happy and feeling like I was making a contribution to my community and being completely hacked off and under-challenged. Starting something new now might not be the best thing as I really don't have a whole heap of brain space to take away from raising a family.

In short, I have absolutely no idea what I want to do, or what is best for Phoebe and our family. I feel selfish if I think about going back to work in financial or personal and professional terms rather than purely what is best for Phoebe. Then I wonder if I am being naive to assume that me being at home with her, rather than earning money for the family, is for her best. Am I just being lazy? Especially considering I feel like a bit of a useless housewife at the moment. I haven't even found time to plan meals and cook in the evenings. It doesn't help that I'm worried about money and feel like I should plan my meals a week ahead and then buy exactly what I need. Plus there's the whole weaning thing going on and the fact that I feel like I should feed Phoebe organic food. And then there's the milk blister... but that's a story for another post, which I really hope I find the time to write.

There are probably many options for part-time work but not necessarily ones that will pay enough to justify putting Phoebe into childcare for those days. And of course, it seems crazy to me that I have to go to work to pay someone else to look after my baby and clean my house. Why can't someone just pay me to do it? Okay so only one person is employed rather than three, but I'd be much better at it. I wouldn't have to travel and I know better than anyone else how to raise Phoebe and organise the house. And I'd probably cost less. It's at times like these that our market economy seems a bit crazy. There must be another way....

Further thoughts on childcare

I can see this discussion on childcare is going to be an ongoing one but it is such an integral part of my thinking and my future, and ultimately, and more importantly, of Phoebe's thinking and future, that there is no ignoring it. Surely, after the decision to have a baby in the first place, it is the single most important decision I will make during the early years of her life. And, given how important we now know those early years to be to the emotional and intellectual growth and development of a child, it may well be the most important decision I make on her behalf ever, one that could have long-reaching effects if I make the wrong, or conversely the right, decision.

I have just started reading a book called "Motherhood: How should we care for our children?" by Anne Manne. It is a post-feminist look at the incongruities between the feminist promise that women can have it all and the reality of choice between a career and motherhood. Manne asks why do women have to choose between "staying at home and suffering reduced career opportunities" or returning to work and relying on an "inadequate childcare system"? Does our society really respect the needs of our children? At least I think that's what it's about. I've only read the prologue.

Apart from the retrospective slant and Manne's voice of experience, I felt like I could have written the prologue. Well, perhaps the fact that it is retrospective and written from experience by definition means that I couldn't have written it. Let's just say this book spoke to me. Well, the prologue did.

Take, for example, the following paragraph:

"Before I became pregnant with my first child I thought about childcare as a kind of abstraction. I had not the slightest understanding of how it would affect a child, but I did have a strong sense of what it might mean for women in realising their legitimate aspirations in the wider world."

My thoughts exactly, only voiced somewhat more eloquently than I might have put it. I probably would have said something like:

"Before Phoebe was born I just thought, 'oh yeah, I'll sort out some childcare. It'd be nice if the grandparents could help us out with that but they can't so we'll just put the baby into a daycare centre. It'll be nice and social. It'll be good for it [I didn't know the sex, remember?]. Plenty of other families do it and they're all fine. Then I'll go back to work. Easy.' But since having her, getting to know her, being around her, reading about babies and how they develop, forming my own ideas on how to raise her and introduce her to the world, I am beginning to wonder if daycare is actually the right choice for us. I want her to have undivided attention until she's a bit older. I am now more convinced than ever that the way to raise a happy, secure, independent and social child is to give them as much love and attention as they need in their first months and years of life."

Or, as Manne puts it:

"What had seemed a reasonable course of action before birth ... now seemed unthinkable in relation to this tiny vulnerable human being that both of us as parents spent so long, and with such intensity, trying to "read", to understand the language of gesture, to find what things or actions soothed her or made her happy."

Quite.

So, although I will still look at some other daycare centres that have been recommended to me, I have now started to consider other options, such as family daycare. However, Manne then goes to on to talk of her own "bodily anguish" in being separated from her daughter for half a day a week whilst working, even though her daughter was in the care of her father during this time. She talks of her search for decent childcare for her baby, from daycare centres who confined children to cots and playpens or left them to cry, to family daycare where young children gleefully yelled "mummy, mummy" whenever the doorbell rang, and then suffered the inevitable disappointment that came with the realisation that it wasn't their mother. She maintains that the older the child, the better they coped with being separated from their parents for such long stretches of time.

Manne talks about separation anxiety, which generally affects children from the age of six or seven months when they first become aware of how important their mother (or father) is to their wellbeing, to around 18-24 months when they become more independent. She says to be separated from their parents for long periods of time causes grief in a baby. The intensity of love that a child feels for its parents can't be underestimated and a baby of less than two years old can't be expected to understand that their mother will collect them in eight hours. Eight hours is an inordinate length of time to a baby. It may seem like forever. Imagine how you would feel if you were separated from your lover for an indefinite period of time. You don't know that person has gone and for all you know you may never see them again. Sure, you have friends who can help you take your mind off things, entertain you for a while, but will they replace the person you have lost? Is this what daycare is like for a baby? Perhaps not, but what if it is?

A child's journey towards independence is a natural progression and can't be rushed and in fact Manne believes that those children who aren't pushed go on to become more independent later, probably because they feel secure. I know that I felt quite safe moving to Australia six years ago because I had a safe and loving family to return to in England. If my parents had sent me here against my will it would have been a very different story.

She also talks about the practicalities of someone else spending such a large proportion of time with your child and this was one of the things that struck me when I visited what I shall now refer to as The Hellhole on Monday. I want Phoebe to see the world through my eyes, and through Toby's eyes, in particular Toby's eyes actually as he has a childlike enthusiastic view of the world (unless we're talking about global politics or economics). I want her to spend days in the park, at the beach, in the garden. I want her to look through Toby's vegetable patch for the latest snowpea (something her three year old cousin loves to do when she visits), to pet and play with the cats, to talk and read with her mammy. (Another quote that reached out to me was "books are not essential in everyone's life, but they are in mine".)

I don't want her watching hours and hours of television. I don't want her to stop asking for what she wants or needs because she isn't listened to. I want her to fall asleep on my lap when she's feeling particularly needy, to have quiet time in her bedroom away from other people. As Manne points out childcare, unless it's the very elite form of a nanny who comes to you, does not afford you the luxury of privacy. I had never even thought of that. I know it's like school and then work. I know that life is about learning to get along with people you might not normally choose to spend time with but when you're one year old, or younger? These are precious years for our babies, ones that they will never have back. Do we really want them to grow up so quickly?

I know I was lucky to have a mother who stayed at home with us. In the '70s and '80s it was much more common but even then some of my schoolmates had mothers who worked. But now I am beginning to really appreciate just how lucky I was and I want the same for my own children. It's such a short amount of time really. I don't intend to be a stay at home mum forever. I can imagine being a lot happier putting Phoebe into childcare when she's nearer two years old but will I still have a job? Two years is nothing to me but it's everything to Phoebe and it could make such a difference to her development. Are two years of child-rearing worth losing my job over? Is my job worth missing out on Phoebe's formative years and giving her the best start that I can? What will really matter in ten or twenty years time? What will be my most significant contribution to the world? I think we all know the answers to these questions.

Perhaps I should become a professional blogger. I could get friends to babysit Phoebe for half a day at a time in return for looking after their kids. I am quite sure that if I took my time over it, rather than just bashing out a blog post in twenty minutes whilst Phoebe is sleeping, I could be quite a good writer. I just need to figure out how to make money from it.

Manne says "the experience of becoming a parent is a revelation of what is deepest in us, of our humanness and our mortality." I couldn't agree more.

Post script: I visited another childcare centre today and feel much better about things. The room where the babies sleep was bigger and nicer. When you first walk in there's a huge space with carpet rugs, mats, cushions and toys. The carer was sitting on the floor with two of the babies. Another baby was sitting on her own with a book, seemingly quite happily. The kitchen area was separate from the change area and all seemed very clean and nice. The director showed me round and was a lovely lady. She gave me some paperwork to take away. None of this "just keep calling and when there's a vacancy we'll give you some stuff to look at." It probably helped that we arrived at the end of the day after some of the babies had already left, whereas with the other place we obviously arrived at feeding time (which makes it sound like a zoo). I spoke to the director about routine and she was quite happy for Phoebe not to be in one until she's a bit older (18-24 months). Although I'm still not convinced daycare is the right thing to do, especially for five days of the week, I do feel a lot better about things. Have another couple to look at next week or when we get back.