Important Work Function went well last night, got to talk to interesting people and not all about work. When I got home the small fella was in bad with Lisa reading stories. She got a big hug when she left, which is a first, and made her smile. I leave work for a month tomorrow lunchtime, to spend a month (sortof) on the thesis. It will be really good to have a break from work. When I get back I will keep working full time for a while, then go part-time, then go away to have the baby. So with all these breaks it is quite easy to feel reasonably relaxed about the job.
Still haven't heard from the husband.
C is not smooth sailing at his childcare, he is being a bit bumptious. Nothing they can't handle, and it is all being written off to the adjustments to dad being away, and spending quite a bit of time at Lisa's etc. Poor kid has a fairly unsettled life compared to some, what with his parents going away frequently. He seems happy enough, but boy does he grind his teeth at night. Seems kind of sad/wierd/unnatural for a 3 yr old to be grinding his teeth in his sleep so loud he sometimes wakes me...
I am wearing the nicest thing I can still fit, and I am cold. There is an Important Function here at work tonight, and so I felt obliged to dress up a bit. But I need a hottie and a pair of woolly socks. I don't even get to drink the free alcohol :(
Transit NZ are building a bridge just north of the Paraparaumu roundabout (or is it the Paramatta roundabout?). They are spending 2.7, 2.9 no they're now up to 3.3 million on it and they have stopped work. Why? Because the land will not support the bridge, and the surveying didn't reveal that before they were months into the project. I'm horrified, and it seems there is no review process planned to see how this debacle happened.
The big document is charging along after having a really effective and efficient meeting where all the issues that need to be in the document were discussed and resolved. Wierd but wonderful.
Had a good lunch with Helen. She is like another mum, without the directive side. So I get sympathy, but not told what to do - though to to give Ma her credit, she has cut back on that quite a lot in the past couple of years.
Had an old friend, and a goody too, track me down through nefarious means and re-establish Ctact. Makes me feel good all over... And she is having a baby which I know was much wanted in her household, and wasn't instantaneous either.
Pregnancy brain has struck badly, which means emails are being sent without attachments, and I can't find anything in the F drive at work. Stupidity is a terrible disability!
The woman who is going to look after the animals while we are away came round last night, and she is going to be very very good. The dog is going on a 2-3 hour walk every day while we are away, which will make her think she has died and gone to heaven. The cats will be loved and fed and I think it will be in that order too. The plants will be watered, and the mail collected. And all for the price of the dog walking - and that is cheaper than putting the three of them into boarding. Yup, I'm happy about that.
No news of the husband - wonder if I will hear from him all month?
I feel fine about how life is going as long as I don't talk about it too much. If I talk about it, I come close to crying. Obviously, I have too much on my plate. It is not like I have too much going on - its just the usual home to work, lawns, dishes, entertaining the son, but the pressure of R being away (and did you see there was a bomb went off in Kabul in the weekend), and going to stay with other people all December, getting C settled into in old childcare and working on the thesis While Being Tired because I am pregnant - its just a bit too much.
As I said to my mother on Friday night, you just have to keep going. She had wondered whether I would make it through the week, and my answer was I had too - what were the options?
My Ccession to my feeling of 'overwhelmed' is I am not even pretending to work on my thesis at the moment. And I'm going to bed early. And drinking more caffeine!
Nope, hubby is not leaving on Saturday, its tomorrow. He hasn't reached screaming panic yet - but the thought is there!
If this is how the Army organises itself, I Cfess I'm a bit worried! Its no surprise to them that these people need to be rotated, and that they need to have their gear packed and inspected and shipped home, so why are the people doing the job only finding out 3 days before they leave home? And the idea he is doing pre-deployment training TODAY, when the Timor training took months is laughable.
He doesn't even know when he is flying out tomorrow. And they let these people have guns...
There is a lot to organise in a short time at home. The cats and the dog need to have vaccinations, and have suitable care arranged for them. Then C and I need accomodation in Chch, and that is proving trickier than I thought. I presumed Hayley wouldn't mind having the sprog as well, but I was wrong. I don't feel up to pussyfooting round a less than enthusiastic host, so we may well decamp to Flick's where we are both assured of a warm welcome. And then he who is going to Afganistan has spread the potential Ctents of his bags liberally round the house, and is getting his tense "focussed on the trip" grumpiness starting to surface.
And I would really have liked to go south and just Ccentrate on my thesis and leave the family out of my calculations for a month and to focus. I am feeling as if I have lost an opportunity, and R has gained one. And in the words of millions of people all over the world, it just doesn't seem fair!
Tootling along counting down to leaving here for a month when the husband rings up and tells me they want him to go to Afgansitan for 3 weeks. Right when I am going away to Christchurch. We really need to put the kid in some kind of hypersleep for 3 weeks. Just. Kidding. Okay?
So the old phone is getting a hammering, but hubby is grinning and fizzing and very excited. I'm just feeling a bit stunned.
Since I have had a small person in my life, I have had more excuses for playing games like hide and seek, and chases
Actually, let me digress slightly to tell you about hide and seek with the three year old. Use to be I'd call "here I come", and he'd yell back "I'm here!". Sometimes he'd jump out and show me where he was hiding. Then we went through the hilarious phase where he would show us where to hide, then he would come and 'find' us. The best one was when he hid my six foot tall dad under the cover in his bed. C went off and counted in the kitchen, and came back to find Dad wasn't there anymore. Total Cfusion (Pa had moved to hide in C's closet). C went to look for him somewhere else, and Pa went and hid in the bed again. When C came back he was So Cfused!! But everyone thought it was extremely funny.
Children bring that lightness of being thing into life, its a gift from them to us boring gameless adults. However they have lots more stamina than us, and will want to play long after the game has lost its fun for the oldies.
R plays games, war games. With lots of little plastic tanks. Its a bit like chess but without the forces being symbolic. I can't stand it, there's no speed or excitement - a move can take half an hour. I'm useless at chess too.
Politcis strikes me as a game - they certainly act like children in the house.
Can't get up any enthusiasm today - good thing I am going to be away from work for a month in December, might come back with more vim and vigour.
Spent the weekend up at Shona's farm. They have no TV reception, and no internet. There are no shops within 40 mins of driving, and there was nothing urgent to do round the house. It was absolute bliss to realx, do some spinning, some cooking. Go for a couple of gentle walks, take photos of goats. R escaped from his exercise, and came for the weekend - it was nice to see my husband again!
Got a midwife visit tonight - it has been quite tricky organising my life so I get there on time and also have some method for getting home. And then I needed to make sure C was safe and cared for. Life is a lot simpler with hubby at home.
Last week we had a brief purge of the recipie books - we have a lot but actually only use a fairly small percentage regularly. That doesn't mean that I will get rid of all the frequently unused ones - some of them are well loved. For example Julie Buiso's Long Italian Lunch doesn't get used a lot, but the thought of having long italian lunches in Italy makes me very happy! And the recipies I have used from the book have all been good. Which makes lunch in Italy even more appealing...
The work horses in the collection are "Meals without Meat" and "Meals without Red Meat" by Alison Holst. They are slowly turning into sticky books that fall open on particular pages. Everything that woman writes works so well. And I don't need to do special shopping to get fancy ingredients, but it tastes like I did. The new work horse is the Crock Pot cooking book written and published with the aid of Sunbeam. I can't remember the author, but she understands the crock pot Ccept of chuck things in, go away for several hours and come back to good food. Some authors are wanting me to brown things, and do half the cooking in pots which negates the whole point of using the crock pot.. but I could winge about that for ages, so will just shut up.
the other idea that occurred to me was writing about a recipie for a happy life. I'm not an expert, but I have a happy life, so must know at least a little about it. But all the things I would say would have the ring of platitudes and be a bit irritating all in a row, so I desisted! And besides what I am expert in is how to give Toni a happy life. What works for me may be a totally unique collection of platitudes, that would fail all others.
Had a ultra sound scan this morning, and saw bubs for the first time, who showed off by doing twists and turns. Due date for arrival of seCd child is 25 May.
WLB (wiggly little blighter) was too small to have the scan to see if they are high or low risk of down's syndrome, and I can go back next week and have another scan to see the risk - they won't be able to say yes or no, just whether the risk is high or low. The thing is, if WLB is high risk, I'm not sure what I would do about it. They could do more invasive tests with needles if WLB is high risk, which can result in miscarriage, and the final result of the tests could be deciding whether to kill the child by abortion. I have no idea if I could make a decision on that - so at this stage I am thinking I will take a head in sand approach and do nothing. But I don't know, perhaps I should. Dither Dither Dither. And this is just vacillating about having another scan!, imagine if I had a real decision to make...
WLB looks bloody cute for something 44mm long. :)
Golly
Had the parents stay for the weekend. Got the usual gripes about my hair, my housekeeping, the food (Friday night is F&C night, not something they would normally eat) and why I haven't finished the thesis, and less vigorous passes at my clothes. Once they have got that all off their chests, the rest of the weekend was good. They have been on holiday in Australia, and were passing through on their way home.
The brat was in a very tiring mood, with "Mum, why?" or "Mum, what?" or "Mum, when?" questions every 2 minutes, and general chatter in between the questions. After an hour or so my tolerance and calm is being battered away, and I need some silence, preferably on my own. But at least if I explain to him I need some silence he can understand that, and can be silent for a clear period of time - like a drive to town.
Discovered Moore wilson's which I have know about but not visited before. Lots of kitchen toys, and my Csumerist side was a very happy critter, seeing so much stuff to desire. But all I bought was a plastic box for bath toys. Yay, me!