Working Mother

I am a working mother. I went back early. This does not make me less of a mother then you. This does not mean I don't love Xander. So on behalf of all working mother's out there, let me make this very clear.

My reasons?
Well if I don't say money, the rest of this will seem dishonest. I like to go out for coffee, I like to buy cool things for Xander, I am locked into a government grant that I would have to pay back if I didn't work. I wanted the money.

I love being a mother, far more then I ever expected. I love Xander. But being a mother is not all of who I am. Lots of people can be a stay at home parent and do a wonderful job and do it without becoming a one dimensional person who can't think outside of that role. I am not one of those people, I needed, to keep myself sane, and therefore to be a good mother, outside interests. I don't play sport, I'm not especially arty, work is to me, what your hobbies are to you. I enjoy it, it's stimulating, it's a challenge. Xander is all those things as well, but much like how I'm often reading more then one book at one given time, I like to have a few things going on.

My gorgeous boy knows who I am, has a healthy, but not overdeveloped sense of stranger danger. He goes to daycare, he plays with other children, he plays with different toys. He doesn't seem distressed by this system. He is a happy loving baby, who is meeting his developmental mile stones.

I think every parent must make the choice that's right for them and their baby.

End Rant

Handling complaints.

No matter who you are, or what you do. If you send in a letter of complaint because it took over 4 visits to get the car fixed (1. don't have the part 2. the wrong part came 3. the parts department sent the part back 4. we don't have the right tool to install the part), you shouldn't get attacked and essentially told that doctor's don't do a good job so why should they. That's it. That's all I'm saying. Plus what do you think it would do for your staff morale if they heard you use the phrase "you can't make silk purses out of pig's ears" to describe them???

Bec = MacGyver

I just want to tell you all about how I pulled a minor (very minor) MacGyver the other day.

I came home to find a note from my cleaner saying that she couldn't get the plug in the sink in the ensuite to spring back (it's one of those push in ones). Bugger

I went in, a sink full of bleach and water, tried in vain to get the plug to spring out by pushing on it, just jamming it further and further in. Talked to Matthew, who said try unscrewing it. Trying to unscrew a jammed plug in a sink full of bleach = impossible.

Thus I began to empty the sink. Once it was empty I returned to the futile task of trying to unscrew the plug. I soon realised that what I needed was a tiny suction cup so I could put it on and turn it. Not surprisingly, Matthew said we did not have the above mentioned device. I wracked my brain...

I dried the sink very thoroughly, I got that thick double sided tape that comes with hooks you attach to the wall. I attached one side to the plug, one to my ventolin puffer.... And I pressed down and turned....

Yay... The plug was out.

We will never use it as a plug again.

Somerset and Wivenhoe

Coffee with Sally, Andrew, Floss and little people




They are releasing water from Somerset into Wivenhoe, is very cool...

Dreaming

Dreams are so pictorial and non-linear that putting them in words always feels like your losing so much in the translation. Sometimes the more I try to explain them the more it seems they are like living fluid slipping through my fingers.

Nevertheless I had a freaky dream last night.

First it was like I was going through a jelly like substance. When I emerged I was in the world but it wasn't quite right. It was close to my world but really wasn't quite my world. As people talked to me and I tried to play along and pretend I knew what they were talking about it became clear I was the wrong Rebecca in the wrong world. So I went to see my sister-in-law Karen because I was pretty sure she'd understand and be able to help me. She would know it was a bit like the "other" world in Coraline. Karen was quick to look around and make sure no one was listening and kept whispering about me needing vitamin Zee. Which for some reason we really needed.


I then had to try and use this secure portal on her computer to contact her friend Lauren but I couldn't make it work so I smsed her instead which Karen was not thrilled about. We then went to the train station.

The trains were ones that went along hanging from rails rather then on tracks and there were platforms at lots of levels so that if you were at the top platform you looked into a dark pit that had lots of rails for trains to hang from, all crisscrossing. It was so high you couldn't see to the bottom. Suddenly I realised I needed to get the vitamin zee from the other side of the station and this guy said he'd get it. And he swung up onto a rail and started swinging to get momentum to swing across to the next one and he let go and missed the next one and them plunged down screaming until we couldn't see him. Then someone else volunteered to go. He was much more careful. Rather then trying to do big swings across he went across from rail to rail swinging from hands to knees to hands like an acrobat. Then I realised lots of people were doing that because it was the only way to cross. And people fell all the time but it was just accepted as one of those things.

Anyway it went on and on and even involved me going to this rehab place in search of vitamin zee and the rehab place was being run by someone who turned out to be a robot (a big reveal that occurred in the parking lot of a shopping mall and ended with me hiding on the roof of a camper trailer). It was all very weird. And I woke up without getting the vitamin zee.