Where does one start? Never having ?blogged? or, indeed every actually read a blog ? something I realised when I sat down to write this ? it?s difficult to know where to begin. A brief biog perhaps, or just straight into ?that was the week that?? and people can pick up the details as we go along. I?ve chosen the latter.
A fairly normal week, with a typical number of challenges on the work and home front. I?ve been working 3 days a week since the middle of June and, never having worked part-time before, I?m really beginning to understand why people find it tough, both from an employees and an employers point of view. Having completed my three days on Wednesday (to complicate things slightly I work Monday and Tuesday in the office and Wednesday from home) I felt somewhat guilty to have to ?dump? the remainder of my week?s work on an already busy colleague. To a certain extent, the timings weren?t my fault and the information we were issuing to the press (I work in PR) would always have to have been sent on Thursday or Friday. But there?s still that nagging feeling that I could have been a little more organised and left her with less to do.
After nearly three years as a parent, I?ve come to realise that guilt is an integral part of the role?.now I?m finding it comes with working part-time too!
That aside, we all had a good week. I?m moving into a new role at work which I think will make situations like the one I?ve described much rarer and the children have also been pretty good this week.
I say ?pretty good? as anything more than that is impossible to achieve I think with a very-nearly-three-year-old boy (who I will call Older Boy or OB) and a just-turned-one-year-old girl (Younger Girl, clearly). Both are angelic some of the time, good most of the time and horrid a relatively small proportion of the time (for which I know I?m very lucky). But with YG teething a fair bit of the time and OB reaching the truly ?terrible? we have some testing days.
On the second point, I?m increasingly believing that the idea of the ?Terrible Twos? is in fact a myth, something backed up by my (hugely unscientific) research. I got chatting to a woman on the train the other evening who was a mother and a child psychologist (a tough combination I thought). Anyway she maintained that it is actually the ?threes? that are the hardest, which confirmed what I?d been told by several other people.
It does explain why OB has started having tantrums in the last month or so, when he?s never had them before. So far, we?ve not had anything completely unmanageable, but ten he?s not quite three yet so God only knows what?s to come! I think if I had one piece of advice for people who were becoming parents it would be to never yourself get smug about your kids ? they?ll turn round and bite you in the a**e, I?m afraid!
Not much about my week, I?ve realised, but I suspect that?s how it?s going to be. I?m not sure that anyone?s that interested in the minutiae of my commute or the politics of my particular office in any case.
