Before I had Ava I never really understood the need for routine. I was happy to work weekends or cover shifts. I didn't mind last minute plans for after work beers or the odd night I had to work late. Then I had a baby. And of all of a sudden the need for routine became everything. When will she sleep?, I silently pleaded with my eyes to every fellow mother who stopped to coo over her. Why does she cry all the time?, I wanted to ask at every single doctors appointment. I listened to every piece of advice I was given during those testing first three months and everyone said the same thing.
Routine, routine, routine.
Children need routine. And it worked. Morning feeds at the same time. Bath, bed & book at the same time every night. Establish good patterns to make them feel safe. Establish good sleeping habits. It worked for me as well. Being such an OCD, tidy freak who is always early for everything - routine gave me a sense of control when I was feeling out my depth, sleep deprived and sometimes desperate.
While my work life over the past year hasn't been unfulfilling, it has lacked routine. And at times it's been unsettling and difficult for both myself and for Ava. With no parents around, childcare is not readily available to me the way it is to a lot of other mums. Not something I have ever complained about as I am lucky in so many other ways. But I have relied solely on my sisters to help me out in a job that requires me to work shifts. Sisters who have their own lives and their own social lives away from their own jobs. Jobs they also work hard at.
My job has seen someone else tuck my child into bed on a Saturday night. My job has seen my sisters racing to nurseries after work to make it for 6pm. Probably breaking speed limits just to do so. It's even seen some very lovely nursery school teachers take Ava into their own home and give her breakfast at 6am. And sometimes take her home and give her dinner at 6pm.
That's not to say I have a draconian or unreasonable job. It's merely the industry I work in. I actually have a very understanding work who have pretty much bent over backwards to accommodate what I am. A single mother with little help with childcare. But it's time to move on. I am going to miss the people I have met over the last three years and the way I have developed. I am going to miss the feeling of that first appointment with a newly engaged and buzzing couple to seeing her in her dress and him wracked with nerves when their wedding day finally arrives.
Hell, I'm even going to miss organising Frozen Tea Parties for 60 screaming kids.
Very soon I am starting something new. And a bit scary. But also something I have wanted to do for a long time. Previously any week days I have had off (a novelty I will no longer have in my new job), I have spent them in solitude on this laptop. Only getting up to make the odd coffee, hang up a load of wet laundry or open the mail. I wouldn't even stop for lunch. Wouldn't even stop until it was time to close the computer and pick up my daughter. I would blog, write, apply. Blog, write, apply. All in the vain hope that I might turn my life in the direction of doing something that I think I was made to do.
That I think I will be really, really good at.
I think the next 6 months are going to be an amazing time for me in terms of learning and growing. In terms of developing in an area I have longed to understand more about for a while.
But I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.
However it's time for some routine.
Wish us luck x
No comments:
Post a Comment