Dog

from here

Alan got a job in the city and is now gone for around 11 hours of every day. It’s a big change for our family – since Moses was born Alan’s been either studying or working part-time, so he’s always been around to eat breakfast with Mo (they’re both early risers) and to share dinner cooking and preparation with me. Until we move closer he’s missing both, and we’re all adjusting to not having him around. There’s some serious separation anxiety going down. If Alan was to look back before zooming off to work on his motorbike, he’d see hands pressed against the window and a little face, tears spewing, screwed up mid-tantrum. And if he was to listen hard over the roar of the engine, he’d hear a long wail: “I DON’T WANT YOU TO GOOOOOOOO!“

Meanwhile, Moses is happily tipping out the Duplo and saying, “Come on, mum – let’s make dinosaurs!”

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Each morning I’m overwhelmed by the feeling that there is no possible way Moses and I will have enough to do to entertain us until the time we hear Alan’s bike revving up the street and pulling up out the front of our house. Every evening I look forward to that moment like a dog looks forward to the return of her master – “Relief! Adult conversation! It must be nearly the kids’ bedtime!” *tail wags*

Hair

Bed hair

Bed hair

Bed hair

"Mum cleaned my scalp in the bath and forgot to comb my hair back down afterwards" hair

Exercise

from here

I’ve recently started making an effort to be more active in order to fit back into my pre-pregnancy jeans and avoid the need to go shopping for new clothes; this desire coincided nicely with the start of the new year, so voilà: a resolution. So far I’ve been walking in the evenings (when the temperature is dropping) and enjoying the chance to listen to podcasts and set my own (toddler-free) pace and smile encouragingly at all of the other walkers/joggers who pass by. I like walking, even during the summertime, it turns out.

The other day I was remembering with amusement a time when I went for a walk with a friend who walked faster and faster as we went on and I kept pushing myself to keep up with her until my shins splinted (medical speak, yo) and I had to beg her to slow down, at which point she told me that she’d thought I was the one speeding up and she was struggling to keep up with me. We never walked together again. I keep this in mind when walking with new people now, and always make sure we have conversations about the speed at regular intervals, just to make sure we’re not accidentally injuring each other.

I’ve also borrowed a few exercise DVDs from the library. One of them is specifically for post-pregnancy and promises in its blurb, “This video will pull the muscles back together.” I’ve had it at home now for a week or so and my muscles are still all over the shop; I’m starting to think I actually have to watch the video and follow the routine for it to work, which is quite disappointing.

Lessons

from here

We had dinner with our neighbour last night, and heard of how she’d wanted to study nursing after school but her mother had told her she probably wouldn’t be able to do it and suggested she work in an office instead. She ended up working for a bank, and hating it. Even if our neighbour wasn’t aware of and open about the fact that she still wishes she’d at least given nursing a go, it would be obvious from the simple fact that I’ve now heard that story at least three times over the two years we’ve been living next door to her.

The moral of this story: Don’t discourage your child from studying what she wants to, or she’ll regret her choice for a really long time.

A good friend from school loved music, and wanted to take time off after school to write and record some songs. His mother let him know that as long as he wanted to live in their house he was going to study teaching because teaching would get him paid, and being a musician probably wouldn’t. He is now a very good primary school teacher. I think of that story with a little envy; I wish someone had said to me, “Linguistics shminguistics! You won’t find much work studying something like that!” But in a nice way. And then sat down with me and a UAC guide and helped me figure out the type of course I was really looking for and not just the one that sounded like it’d be kinda sorta interesting.

The moral of this story: Discourage your child from studying what she wants to, or she’ll regret her choice for a really long time.

Satisfaction

My embarrassingly enjoyable CD project is now done:

before

after