It has been five months since I last posted on here - and maternity leave sounds like a million miles away, so much so that I am thinking about upping my days next year, whilst my 'mummy' friends are planning their next one!
So what did the last five months have in store?
September was an interesting one - it started off with us in A&E the night before the new term started after Maya choked on a pea (I knew there was a reason that I have always believed peas to be evil!). A week later we were back at the hospital meeting my lovely little nephew Jenson, who spent the first few days of his life scaring us in special care, whilst Sharon spent her birthday away from him on ward with a horrible infection. Surprisingly I enjoyed being back at work and settling in with my new colleagues.
In October I embraced being less of an arsehole at work - and decided not to invest all my time with the career ladder climbers and branch out and make some new friends - which is going okay. Already I was totally swamped at work and often working on my days off whilst Maya was asleep - I guess that's what you get when every scheme of work needs rewriting and you are trying to plan and resource Entry Level English with absolutely no help from the department you would expect to run it. Why bother to teach these challenging kids yourself when you can get the head of geography to do it, therefore eating into her actual geography teaching time and slightly wasting her skills?? October also saw me 'abandoning my family' according to my mother-in-law as I headed north of the border for a much needed catch up with Beccy. It was so lovely to be able to go out late and sleep until 10, pop to a wine cellar without thinking about stopping at 2 in case Maya wakes in the night! Sitting around in my pjs and watching shite TV was a luxury! Apparently poor James could barely cope in my absence - which was actually a load of crap he confirmed - but I still overheard the MIL telling my five year old niece that "Maya's mummy abandoned her for a few days so she is feeling very insecure" - aargh!!!
November and December went in a blur of baby swimming and Pyjama Drama - as well as a bit of too much festive drinking! Christmas with a toddler was fun, except for the 4 hour power cut on Christmas Day and the few days afterwards with the in-laws, who after 12 years still have a knack of making me feel spectacularly unwelcome and uncomfortable in their freezing cold house! In fact the MIL got so angry when she overheard a snippet of an argument between James and I, that she had to go out for a walk to calm down - if only she knew she had actually caused that fucking argument in the first place!!
January saw lots of snow and other rubbish cold weather - unfortunately the main focus of the month took place right at the end when a motorcyclist hit my car as I was trying to reverse onto the drive. Luckily there were no injuries (apart to my car) despite his attempt at pursuing a personal injury claim. It was also a month dominated by the feeling of working with idiots who get paid too much for the role they actually do (or don't do in many cases). Last week's R&D meeting was a prime example of this when many people's contribution was to read part of a book which bore no relevance to anything being discusses, and an hour into the meeting someone said "oh, this is just like.....why don't we focus on those? - a point I had actually made several meetings before and then had dismissed! However clarity didn't last long as soon we were back to time wasting as we discussed what to call them!
Anyway so it's already February - Maya was 19 months old yesterday and this week saw her leaving the baby room at nursery and joining Pippins. How on earth has that come around already? And I know she is ready to move up (and obviously towers over most of the others) but I will be sad to see her leaving the girls who have done such a fantastic job caring for her - most apparently last week when she was really poorly. Unfortunately she appears to be getting a bit more fussy with food, and her and her little friends have started to 'fight' rather than play nicely, however she can do a mean range of animal noises and has embraced bus spotting! She is exhausting - and I am considering going up to four days next year for a bit of a break!
