I am at work, the cold I have been suffering with all weekend is worse, but I am plodding on. I guess this was the “reason to get out of bed” that we talked about when we faced the adoption review panel.
Our eldest daughter is on school holidays for the next two weeks - meaning W has all three of the girls to deal with each day. It’s going to get worse for her too - I am off to visit a far-flung client site with work in the early hours of tomorrow morning, and may not be back until Wednesday night… meaning W will be burdened with looking after the kids single-handed for a couple of days.
As much as I feel guilty about leaving her to manage on her own, and annoyed with work for having done this to us, it is a reminder that I am having to earn the money to pay the bills, and sometimes it’s going to mean me not being there as much as I might like to.
The first few months with our children has not been “normal” - in the sense that we have both been around all the time. Neither of us has gone away for more than a few hours. This week marks the beginning of “normal” life for us as a family, and the final few hurdles in terms of figuring out how to cope.
I’ll try to end on a happier note. W went to get her hair cut at the weekend - and while sat in the salon a woman came in with a small child. The salon double checked that she knew there were no discounts on weekends for children, and the woman acknowledged that she would pay 50 pounds (100 dollarsfor her child’s hair to be cut… the town we live in is not normal. Thankfully we appear to know quite a few of the normal people.
You can spot the “not normals” - they are the ones with the baby buggies crafted from kevlar and carbon composites. They own the BMW 44 tanks that clog up the school run (driven by the nannies of course), and park in streets near the school they are continually asked not to. They are the people who’s nannies dress their children in designer clothes, and then never let them play in them. They go in Starbucks to be seen with a Starbucks coffee in their hand as they wander up the high street to find the parking ticket they don’t care about. When faced with stationary traffic they take to the path and accelerate towards pedestrians.