I felt low again when I woke up this morning. I guess yet another very disturbed night's sleep hadn't helped; nor the fact that both children had wet their beds in the night and were in with me, and that therefore the washing pile seems to have doubled or tripled in size overnight. I'm also concentrating hard on the baby moving - including when I wake at night - as having been measured as 'small for dates' I'm getting a bit paranoid, despite the fact that both the other two were also relatively small, but perfectly healthy, babies. In fact I don't even think they were small at 7lb 9 and 7lb 8, but they'd be at the bottom end of the scale on the growth chart: and Daughter is still only 9th centile!
I think what I'm most worried about is money and it's been sparked off yet again by several bits of freelance work which I had hoped to get not yet having materialised, and by Husband's reverting to saying he should perhaps be looking for work in Aberdeen. When I was interviewed for Carlisle Living earlier this week they asked me what got me down the most, and I answered 'lack of money'. Sometimes it's a perceived lack of money, for example, when I was working, just before pay day: now it's the scarey fact that I may well have no income in 4 days' time, other than the Child Benefit (i.e. £123 every four weeks).
I felt so low I knew that sitting around on my own was a bad idea, and I sent texts to a couple of friends to see if anyone would come out for a coffee with me this morning. I missed aqua aerobics but lovely, lovely Running Friend A. and I had a good gas at Off the Wall in Brampton (and because I hadn't had breakfast I had a ham and cheese toastie, which was lovely but means I still haven't tried their gorgeous-looking cakes).
Running Friend A. always gives the appearance of being cheerful - and I'm a little envious that she always has the most lovely photos of herself on Facebook - and yet I know that she has her lows as well. She has every right to as at a very young age (mid-30s) she's going through the menopause, it appears. I think every woman, however positive they are and however many children they already have, must feel a sadness about not being able to produce a new life any more: certainly if they are the maternal type who always wanted children (I am happy to say that A. has 3 gorgeous, lovely girls and if my children turn out as nice as hers are turning out I shall feel I've done OK).
So we sat and chatted about everything: her hospital appointments, running, training generally, children - and husbands working away. Hers regularly works away from home a couple of nights a week and in fact she said that the house is tidier and the children are better behaved when he's away: and I know he's a great, hands-on Dad who has a good relationship with his daughters. Certainly one of the Mums at school, whose husband works in Chester, has said more or less the same thing: and when my Husband has been away from time to time somehow life - and the house - have seemed more organised. Certainly it would be one less person to tidy up after, and one less set of washing, but.......
I don't really want Husband to work away. I would miss him dreadfully. Lots of families do it and survive but I'm used to having him around. I think I'm worried on a few fronts: a) it would limit my work options if I was stuck at home full-time with a baby, though I could write while Baby slept; b) I still wouldn't be earning my own income (unless some of my freelance ideas come off); c) will it harm my relationship with my Husband or the children's relationship with their Dad?
I said to Husband last night that I think it's easier for the person who is away - he or she can go back to having a sort of single lifestyle during the week - but he said 'what, and that's preferable to being with the children?'. Well, actually, sometimes it might be..... I'm afraid I'm not a good full-time Mum and one of the great things since moving up to Cumbria has been that I've managed to work (and let's face it, even though I'm not officially working at the moment, I'm putting a lot of time into job-hunting, writing articles, trying to build up a freelance career....) and also pick up my singing again and get fitter. In fact I'm sure I mentioned in this blog very early on, just before I found out that I was pregnant, how satisfied I was and how I felt I was getting my own life back! When Son and Daughter were younger and I was working full-time, it was me who spent nights away from home - for work - not Husband. As he rightly says, in some ways I'd be better suited to working away than he would. Am I going to feel very resentful if he works away in Aberdeen and goes running and climbing and out socialising with friends he has up there and with his brother?
Meeting Husband and having children changed my life completely - in fact I would say I didn't fully realise how much until recently - but I wouldn't turn back the clock, and the children are only little for such a short space of time. I don't want to work full-time and be away from them for days and nights on end, and the idea of a freelance lifestyle when I'm not being managed by some idiot I have no respect for really appeals. The worst case scenario would be if Husband and I both worked full-time and the older children had to be in breakfast club and after school club, and the Baby in nursery, every day.
We have a lovely and very fulfilling life here: I just want some income of my own. If Husband works away in Aberdeen how long will it take before he manages to get a job back in Cumbria, albeit that I think the slight change of direction if he moves to Aberdeen for work might give him some useful and broader experience than he currently has?
I think one thing we're resolved on is that we don't want to move away from Cumbria completely, although we have thought about it from time to time: I'm sure there are schools just as good as Hayton, but both children are happy there and we're happy with the school. As they say, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. It was maybe an 'omen' this morning that when I went into Reception the teacher said that whilst she doesn't like testing her class, she's going to do a Year One reading test on Daughter to see exactly what her reading age is, as she's storming through books like nobody's business (I'd be interested to know whether they can do something similar with numeracy as well). I don't think every school would bother to try to pay such individual attention to one child in a class of 29: but I'm also really impressed by the level of 'pastoral' care the children get as well. As the Ofsted report said, it's a school which produces confident well-rounded children, and that surely is one of the biggest success factors a parent can ask for.
I must stop rambling and being emotional. I know things will get better: in the last recession I chose to chuck in a well-paid job and go off to be a holiday rep. for several months. When I returned to the UK I was earning considerably less for about a year and a half, and then was in a job I hated and which wasn't much better paid for a year. But after that I got a job which paid considerably more, I bought my flat, and from there everything went upwards. I'm sure something similar will happen this time: and let's face it life can't be plain sailing all the time. If my children, my Husband and I and this baby are healthy and can afford to eat and to keep a roof over our heads, we don't really have much else to worry about, frustrating though it may be to have to think about what money we're spending. And if Husband spends a couple of years working in Aberdeen to make things a little easier for us, then I'm sure we'll survive. He'll need to spend a lot of time with Baby when he's at home at weekends though: I don't think it's good Fathers being away from their babies.
To end on a positive note: I reread some articles I wrote a few years ago this morning. I can write: I enjoyed reading them (and a magazine editor also said I wrote well). I just need to perservere, not give up too soon, and find an angle that every other would-be writer isn't covering. What's the motto from Les Visiteurs? That's it - toil, toil, never recoil (except I can't remember what it is in French, or Latin).
I'm off to have some soup and then into school for 'Family SEAL'........
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