Love, bubs and life on our little farm

And its not even over yet.

It is one of those weeks where I find myself thinking being a stay at home mum with no interest in a career would be far desirable. Somedays it just feels insane to be juggling career demands with little babies that are so reliant on their mum and all the accompanying stresses. But then I get a prickly annoyance that it has to be so hard for women and tell myself to not even think about giving up.

Well anyway I digress! So Jase went away for a weekend with friends in Sydney and I stayed home all weekend and looked after the two kids. Not a big ask really - I mean I do have them alone most days from their wake-up at 7am until 6pm or so every weekday. But then it got complicated.

I am lecturing this Thurs/Fri at a particular Qld university - I want to do it - it's good for my career but of course hard on a 10 week old breastfed bub. And after many a late night I had written my lecture slides and was feeling prepared. However, this weekend past as I am happily juggling the two kids by myself, I check my email and my heart sinks. I have an email from the course convenor, the person who was supposed to prepare work for the workshops and quizes that are run based on my lectures has not submitted the work and they need it by the end of the weekend, and in the email the professor was begging me to write it. So I then had hours of complex work needing research and hours to write to do with two kids on my hands and no help - oh and a farm full of animals to look after. Fun times. So needless to say my stress levels were pretty high. But it got done.

Fast forward to this morning, I get a phone call from my Dad - my Mum is in hospital with Tick Typhus, she is dreadfully sick. Not only am I worried about her but there goes my two days of babysitting. There is no one to take on my lectures - my boss is interstate and the professor course convenor is overseas. Poor Jase has to take the kids despite him being on an important training workshop for those two days - this will be a complex process of me driving the two kids into the city before my lectures so he misses as little time as possible. Not quite the chance to relax and centre myself for the talks like I had hoped. Never mind the fact that right now, my head space would much prefer me to be down visiting my mum in hospital.

Just to add to that stress, the university has decided to film my lecture for use in a promotional video. Now I have to make sure I sound as calm, centred and intelligent as possible - let alone the fact that I am still trying to get my work clothes to fit post baby - what to wear!

That all mightn't be that bad, if I wasn't already a little strung out emotionally. I spent all yesterday afternoon at the Mater hospital having Bronte's ears tested for the fourth time. And they are now pretty certain she has permanant hearing loss in both ears. We are being referred to a specialist and to the hearing aid people. Wow that is a lot to take in. Fortunately she is only showing mild-moderate loss so I am ever so hopeful that she will get by with little issue in her life. I was feeling pretty sad as I left the hospital but then I walked past the leukemia hospice for little kids and I decided that really I should be happy that Bronte is healthy and strong and getting help for her issue.

Special mentions for contributing to my rotten week should also go to work phone calls and emails coming in at the worst possible times, the fill I had organised for our landscaping falling through and Jase working late multple nights this week.

uuurrghh.

But I do have good news on the progress on the house extension and little Bronte has had a developmental growth spurt and is doing the cutest new things. I will blog about these things soon when I am feeling a little more cheery.

xoxo