Love, bubs and life on our little farm

So I often get comments such as "I don't know how do you do it" and so on. By "it" I think people mean have a career I am passionate about as a Senior Infectious Disease Scientist in Public Health, have a husband with a demanding profession and also live on property, compete my horses and have two young kids.

I don't really have a clever response - I mean we all do what we choose to in life and I simply choose to do what I mentioned above. I do admittedly have a hard time being still or relaxing which helps me fit a fair bit into the day. I sat down on our main lounge setting today and I realised how strange it felt to sit on it during daylight hours - I just don't sit during the day and even Elka looked at me a little strangely!

My work days whiz by in a flash and I actually think I am often more tired on my days at home with the girls. I just love my job - I love the unexpected nature of what diseases are going to turn up in hospitals that day, what outbreaks need source tracking and the thrill (highs and lows) of running research projects and preparing grants and publications. It has gotten a lot more complicated as I have been made head of a laboratory which means I am now a manager of other scientists. I am still part time (with no backfill on my non-work days) and now I am managing full time staff - yep that makes me a little crazy busy at the best of times! I bring work home with me and try to clear out a lot of computer work on my "days off" (any stay at home mum will know that they are not real days off!).

But a typical work day goes something like this

5.30am - our alarm goes off. Jase kindly feeds the chickens, ducks, cats and horses (taking my competition horse's night rug off). I rush into some clothes, make-up and hair - despite being a scientist in a secure lab in a lab coat, I believe strongly in looking professional, probably more so because I am young in comparison to the other managing level staff and want to remind them that I am worthy of respect.

6am - I wake the girls, pack their lunches, give them milk and then breakfast, whilst shoving mouthfuls of cereal in as I run past my bowl. With defiant optimism I make myself a herbal tea, which never has more than two sips taken from it. Defuse the toddler delay tactics, dress the kids, wrestle Bronte into her hearing aids, brush their teeth, do Elka's hair and hustle them out of the house, hastily trying to get a chance to give Jase a kiss goodbye.

7am - leave our farm. En route sing songs with the girls, play word games and hand Elka books to "read stories" to Bronte. I try to make the commute quality time with them since it so long.

7.45am - take the girls into daycare (I use a centre close to my work so I can get to them quickly if they are sick or anything). Spend 5 or so minutes with each of them settling them in.

8am - drive the 2 mins to work, play "Get Smart" swiping through no less than 4 different doors to get into my desk in the lab.

8am-4.30pm - rush around like a crazy fool doing my job which these days is a split between laboratory work, management duties and reporting results at a statewide and national level. Stressful, fun, challenging and some days I seriously weigh up if I can justify the time to swipe out two doors and walk the 6 minute round trip to get to the ladies toilets (and some days I can't, seriously, that was a killer when pregnant).

4.45pm - pick up the girls, chatting to the daycare staff about the happenings in the day.

5.30pm - arrive home, unload the girls and all related paraphernalia. Try to convince them that they can let me out of their sight for 5 minutes so that I can race outside to mix up the horses hard feed and rug them, lock the chickens up for the night, feed the ducks and collect eggs. Come inside and get screamed at simultaneously by starving cats and a Bronte wanting dinner.

6pm - try to feed Bronte something resembling a balanced meal whilst trying to cook dinner, feeling bad that unlike "good mothers" that have meals on the table by bloody 5.30pm, my toddler has to wait for dinner until late. Stare longingly into the dark looking for Jase's car lights. Somehow every single night manage to mistime cooking and the kids baths so that it is maximum stress for all and dinner invariably gets in someway burned/overcooked or cold.

7pm - try to eat food while still warm at the same time as putting Bronte down for sleep and convince a tired Elka that she needs to eat more than just the carrots, corn and broccoli off her plate (my weird child adores vegies - we have found ourselves saying things like "No eat a bite of chicken before you have more vegetables!")

7.30pm - books are read,Elka is tucked in and left to stay in her room, for either sleep or quiet play,we don't mind as long as she stays in there!

8pm+ - Kitchen is cleaned, house is tidied. Jase retires to the study to continue working, I use the laptop for emailing/facebooking before dragging out the exercise bike for a quick workout, finishing with some pilates. Cuddle up in bed to do some scientific reading and writing.

11pm - Jase finished and comes to bed and we finally have some time to chat and catch up, such nice time and muchly needed as much as it cuts into the precious sleep hours!

And repeat with the horrible alarm waking us in the dark of 5.30am...

Sometimes work cuts into the nights also - Jase tries to do one daycare pick up a week so I can stay late at work (and he can get a taste of the joys of getting home with two girls, feeding all the animals and trying to cook dinner/get kids to bed hehe). But he also tends to have work functions at night, teleconferences from either home or his city office or interstate trips which obviously changes the routine. I sometimes have a scientific talk/meeting at night or do some lecturing and I do go interstate for work conferences and training courses...

All this of course leaves me with the more "mum" duties to concentrate on on my two days off from work - we don;t do anything official like classes etc as I tend to like to be flexible for my horse specialist appointments and Bronte's medical/speech appointments that I book on those days but I do take the girls to the library storytime where I meet some mummy friends and go for coffee or morning tea afterwards.

I also fit in the smaller farm jobs on these days but then the weekends are when we get the bigger stuff done - gardening in our large gardens, cleaning out chicken sheds, manure pick-up from the paddocks, fencing, sapling clearing and visiting the produce store to get feed. And we try to take the girls somewhere nice - even if it is just a big park visit or a picnic. I aim to get the horses exercised every weekend and I tend to only go to a horse event/competition every 4-6 weeks as they take up most of the weekend and leave me terribly tired for Mondays. We make sure we cook a nice dinner on Saturday "date" night and have a relaxing couple of glasses of wine. And we have at least one breakfast or lunch as a family out on our deck just soaking up the view. Sometimes its the little things that make all hecticness a little less crazy.

And that's "how we do it"

Feel free to do a post about your typical day,would love to see how others do it :)