Full time working mama again

January has been an eventful month, and I've been feeling like I've been running to keep up and haven't had the chance to write about the 3 biggest events of the year (yes, I know it's early!). I'll keep this post to the first one...

I have gone back to work, and it's full time and full on, baby.

Not only have I rejoined the army on the commute, but I'm also taking in a huge amount of newness, as I have left behind the world of Fragrance and Beauty where I worked in Marketing for over 10 years, and have entered the sparkly world of Jewellery. It's exciting and stimulating to have changed gear again, and to be giving space to that More side of being Mama and More.

I am so much better prepared emotionally and practically this time around than with Missy G. I guess partly because I knew what to expect emotionally, I'd prepared and steeled myself, and as much as possible, the children. Childcare was sorted out long in advance, which meant that we all had ample time to adjust, accept and in fact be really happy with the solution. My big mistake with Missy G I now realise was that she had less than a week to settle in with Ana the childminder, before I effectively deserted her. It ripped us all apart for months I have to say and I still get a lump in my throat to think of all the heartache.

So now I am back to it, a different kind of fast pace, a lovely team - you know the kind of lovely where you sometimes wonder if it can all be real, but actually it really is. I am back to getting dressed up every morning. The high heels are out.

Work outfits are back in my life and I am pulling items out which I'd hidden away during pregnancy, not wanting to even look at some of my clothes while feeling like a small blimp. I love the dressing up part of work. It doesn't feel functional, I don't have to wonder whether it will crease while I have a baby on my hip, or whether I dare wear silk or white in case I get drooled on! I have to admit though to sometimes having days when I look like a walking Zara advert!

(This top though is from kids' Swedish label, Polarn o Pyret, or POP)

The kids seem to love seeing this side to mummy too... long may that novelty last! Mini-G is fascinated by my accessories and gets to have a play in the evenings, and Missy G is in heaven as my little style advisor ("mummy, you've worn that necklace two days in a row, let's try something different" Puh-leeze!).

But also there is such joy when we are reunited every evening.  Mini-G crawls across to see me so rapidly, I'm amazed he doesn't take off.  Missy G does the kind of joyful shrieking and running into my arms that I am used to seeing allocated to her father, not me. Absence working its magic eh?

It of course is not always easy. Part of me is ashamed to admit that I am loving being back at work, dressing up, selfishly indulging my brain in non-child related thinking. I feel that I should be feeling much more torn apart, but I am for the main strangely at peace with it all. This is definitely because I know that the kids are happy and that I implicitly trust the person they are with. What IS hard emotionally and practically is reconciling the fact that I now have such little time and what there is on a daily basis is rushed, squeezed, condensed.

When I walk in through the door, they want all of me and compete with each other.  Mini-G has no words yet to match his sister's (and the nanny's) verbal diarrhoea, but he makes his feelings known, grabbing me and yelling until he is in my arms and I am playing with and tickling him to his satisfaction.  I am so aware that he does not get the luxury of attention that his sister did when she had us to herself, so find myself trying to split time and focus.  Doubly hard then, as I mentioned at length in my last post here, is having to bring discipline into those short precious minutes. Much as I love being back to me at work, I do miss them so, and hate our 45-60 minutes being interrupted by tears when I have to be firm.  But better now than later I keep thinking. It's just hard trying to eke out any real quality of time from the rapid bath-dress-bed routine, and I am giving in to relaxing bedtime, sneaking an extra cuddle in and so what if they're 15 minutes later getting to bed?

So, it's back here again, and back to treasuring and balancing and juggling again.

We will make it work, and Missy G is so well-adjusted and open and able to tell me how she feels about it all, that I feel reassured that my going back to work in the first place did not scar her, but she understands it and accepts it.  Mind you, I obviously haven't had much of a feminist impact on her career aspirations - she plans to be a Princess and dance aaaaaallll day long.  Well, why not, Harry's still free....