belgianwaffle

Work

The nightmare of the working mother or moan, groan, grizzle, whinge


Posted in: Princess, Twins, Work

I got home the other day to find the house empty yet tidy. No note, nothing. Logically, I knew that the childminder had probably just taken them for a walk but deep down I thought this is it I’m always whining about the children and their mess and now I’m being punished in a “monkey’s paw” kind of way. Yes, they all came back, since you ask.

The childminder had a friend to help her the other day and the Princess took a real shine to this friend, so much of a shine that when the friend tried to leave the Princess clung to her and begged pathetically to go too. This was not entirely pleasing to me. It also happened when one of our regular babysitters was here the other day. Then when I was collecting her from school the other day, she refused to leave the afterschool fun and games until she had watched the end of a cartoon. How pleasing this is to a mother.

Finally, yesterday afternoon, I had to go to a meeting at very short notice. Regular readers (hi Mum) will recall that I don’t normally work Friday afternoons but part of the deal is that, if they need me, I will be there. It doesn’t arise very often but I would like a bit more notice when it does. So, to be there I had to arrange a babysitter to collect the Princess from school and reschedule an appointment I had made to take the boys to the paediatrician; do you think anyone was particularly grateful? No, of course not.

In non-whiny news, we no longer have lice, rejoice! Also, if you wish, you may hear the Princess recite a cautionary verse in a somewhat alarming fashion.

Welcome to the empirical world


Posted in: Work

Me: How was your weekend?

New student trainee: Dreadful, I was working on an essay.

Me: On what?

He elaborates.

I offer my considered and somewhat divergent views.

Him: Well that’s an empirical paradigm whereas I am working with a theoretical model.

Ah students.

Email received at work


Posted in: Work

Subject: Not urgent – Good home needed …..
Importance: Low

Item description:

1 careful owner

Good condition

Must be seen

If anyone wants a banana, I have one.

Reasons to stay in private practice


Posted in: Work

Me: I have to think up performance indicators for the office.

Friend (who as only ever worked as a solicitor in a law firm): What are they?

NaBlPoMo – More ex20six

Kate Evans

Kate Evans has moved to Canada. She would like the Canadian nation to stop hugging her. She would like people to stop buying water filters. She has a baby too but she didn’t when I knew her first. Really. She is a cool blogger. I imagine her looking a bit like Kate Moss. I would like to emphasise that she really loves Canada, despite the hugging.

Jojo

Jojo was appointed by the powers that be to enliven 20six, look after us and create a community. She did all that. She commented on new blogs, she pointed us towards interesting things and she solved our problems. When she left 20six, I packed up my virtual bag and left too. She’s a journalist with all sorts of items appearing in real publications that people pay good money for. She also still has a blog wherein she outlines the travails of keeping down a full time job as a free lance while looking after her son. She’s lovely.

I’m the gin in the gin-soaked boy


Posted in: Family, Twins, Work

I had an excellent day at work the other day. As I drove home, destroying the planet, I listened to this catchy song on the stereo. As far as I was aware, all three of my children were healthy and cheerful (I’m the ghost in the machine). We had a babysitter booked for that evening (I’m the sunset in the east). All was right in the world (I’m the trojan horse in Troy). This, I thought to myself, ecstatically, is having it all (tum, tum, tum, tum te tum, tum). Is it though, enough to make up for the other 364 days of the year (I’m the half-truth in the lie)?

And, I know, I’m one of the lucky ones. I enjoy my job. My colleagues are lovely, my boss is a pleasure to work with and the work is interesting. But in the mornings, Michael is particularly clingy and he clutches on to my clothing howling desperately when I leave (mercifully, Daniel is very phlegmatic). Even to go to the kitchen. My mother used to say, when the Princess was small “she was fine until you came in” and it’s the same with Michael. He’s fine and then he sees me and he starts to cry. It will pass I suppose.

But it’s hard. I hate to sound like Breda O’Brien, but I do think that the Irish government is wrong to try to force single mothers and every other type of mother out to work. It’s hard when you are going out to an interesting, reasonably well paid job; it must be bordering on the impossible, if you are going out to some horrible minimum wage job. Especially, if you have no partner with whom to share the childcare. And, let’s face it, what generally works best with childcare is part-time and, mostly, part-time jobs are neither the most interesting ones nor the ones with the best prospect of promotion. My cynical colleague says “worse, come the economic downturn, they’ll all be told to go home to tend their children, two part-time women is one full-time man”. I’m not sure I entirely share this view but I do believe that this whole dilemma will continue until everyone in society acknowledges that children have two parents, both of whom have responsibilities, and that to accommodate this, it is as normal for men to work part-time as for women. I guess I’ll be waiting a while, then.

The sound of elastic snapping


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Work

It’s 38 degrees today. No air conditioning in our sunny flat. No air conditioning in my sunny office. And I am busy, busy, busy. Mr. Waffle isn’t exactly idle at work either but he’s been picking up a lot of the slack at home, while I hunch over a hot computer post 9.30 when our children finally go to bed. Need I say that both of us are up regularly during the night?

Yesterday the creche rang me to say that they would replace the cover of our car seat which got dirtied in their building works.

Me: Sorry, I didn’t see it, my husband collected the boys.

Them: But later when you saw it at home, how was it?

Me: My husband had put it in the wash. And he hung it out to dry and he dropped the boys to the creche this morning because I left the house at 7.30 for an 8.00 am meeting, so I have no idea what the damage is, but I’d say it washed out alright or he would have mentioned it.

Them: Silence.

Me: See, in our household, my husband looks after that kind of thing.

I feel that I am a cliché, running all day at work and running at home and only just managing to catch some of the balls that are in the air. At work, if I don’t write something down, I have no chance of remembering it and even then, some of my notes from the previous day can be baffling (is that somebody’s name, a new policy initiative, what?). As well as having a lot of the kind of competing deadlines that interviewers love to ask about we have a new trainee who is keen as mustard and entirely ignorant about what we do. This combination is proving a little difficult in the short term.

Yesterday, the boys were the last kiddies in the creche and the Princess was the last one waiting to be picked up from her course, the second last little soul having been picked up by her mother 50 minutes previously. The Princess was sitting on her own in a big room at a little table colouring conscientiously under the, slightly dour, supervision of a middle aged man (I suppose, it was hot and he wanted to go home). It was depressing.

Last night Michael woke up with a temperature and was up for a couple of hours. Being Michael, he was cheerful but he was hot. Since it was 30 degrees in the boys’ room anyway, I suspect that didn’t help. The Princess woke up with a temperature. Mr. Waffle took the morning off to tend to her but poor old Michael recovered so well that he was escorted to the creche along with our only healthy child and a message to them to call me, if he seemed unhappy (I called them, he was described as being as happy as someone could be with a temperature of 39 when it’s 39 degrees outside – I will have to rescue him when the Princess wakes from her nap). During the morning Mr. Waffle called to say that the Princess was very cheerful but he had taken her to the pharmacy to get something for her heat rash and they said “that’s no heat rash, that’s chicken pox”. What do you think might be wrong with Michael, people?