Home Away From Home

A friend of mine told me last week 'it's like a domino, if one thing does not work, everything is out of place'.  He fully underestimated the impact of his words and every day since then I think about the analogy. His point was even, are you really living if you are just following the domino along?  I mean, I guess it is good if you got your system well figured out to do all the things you love but what if you need to add an extra piece?  My system has become very stable. 7.00 I get up, most of the times lucky that C had a restful night. Most of the times I still wake up dead tired, much of it thinkong ahead. Shower, clothes, bag and if C is sleeping I will just head out just after 7.30. Some days I prefer she does not wake up so I can dash and start work early or not have to say bye to those little eyes staring at me and knowing I am leaving. But most days i quite enjoy our little moment, I sit her in my bed and she babbles, smiles, claps, and gets me ready for the day. Sh

Yesterday, a friend told me a story, one that I will share with no names to keep their privacy, but one I have to share.  His 5 year old daughter attends school somewhere in London.  Last week she came home and told his parents that her teacher was going to leave the school.  She explained to the boys and girls in her classroom that she was now engaged to be married and therefore she was done with work, as her future husband could provide for her and this was what women did.  My friend was outraged. Is this even allowed?  Trying to persuade his daughter that she could do whatever she wanted in her life and women did not at all have to stay home, he was only more discouraged by the fact she was not proud of the fact that her mother and grandmother worked.  After all, all other dads were good to allow the mums to spend time with their children and pick them up from school.  Why would she care if only her mum worked - that did not look like a goid thing. Really? #leanin #women

Sometimes it is just too much. And it does not even have to be big, sometimes the little things are enough to get to you. I guess I am just tired - but not tired of not sleeping, tired of all always being a fight. I guess I was just as tired before but the difference is my job has deteriorated materially and my benefits of being home increased greatly. And them there's the NGO - with the new people, I feel I need to give it a boost and use this as an opportunity to get things off my plate. But I just can't seem to do it. Some days I come home sick of the fight, others I get sad about B's fight and one way or the other everything drags on. They want to give me a prize. I wonder if that will still apply if one day I give up. I never felt like this before. I never thought of giving up as being an answer but i am overwhelmed about the feeling of dissatisfaction.  There are all these things I don't do anymore, that I stopped doing around the years. Most people blame 'bei

The end of the week is always glorious - there is just so much to look forward to, even if most of it is just illusion. More time to sleep, more time to rest, read a magazine, do some charity, see friends, have quality time with B and C. My personal fitness bubble is bursting in joy (though you may have noticed I did not put gym time in the things to look forward to).  The bubble is bursting and eventually pops around 8.30 pm on Sunday once the balance of the weekend is more quality time with B and C, time with friends and none of the rest. And that is brilliant on its own. But eventually i will over compensate on Sunday night charity work and bring the sleeping and resting more into negative ground. Well at least I am predictable. That helps, as it reduces the 'schock' of the end of the weekend. But still, it won't change the feeling that I am in autopilot mode and the 'back to manual' button is broken. 

So the (only) slide I had in my coaching session had 3 bubbles where one needs to reach balance - personal fitness, job fitness and career fitness. The coach says women tend to focus on job fitness - focus on getting the job done, try to spend time with family - mostly insufficient for personal fitness, and not really focus on career fitness. I see why but the one that I find might need to be multiple bubbles is personal fitness - I think she kind of panicked when I told her that my personal fitness included at least 2 hours per day of charity work and that i was looking into one hour on saturday mornings to go to the gym amd try to be (more) fit in the real sense of the word. She was relieved to find out I function relatively ok without sleep but I do wondered what she would think about Law 4 All, my obsession with setting up something and my inner desire to write a book. At least she agrees women can't have it all. I agree that people can't have it all in general. My life was

I am now learning how to get back to work after C. As in, someone is trying to teach me how. Really. There is coaching on this. And it seems like I need it. Even E rolled her eyes when I told her. Yes, really. It must be because women are not good at it. My first question to the coach was whether managers got coaching too. Apparently there is coaching for that too. A friend of mine is about to return to work after a year and her boss went and got training as she was the first women in the department to ever have a baby. Really? Yes really. It is funny, there were times when this blog would be all about travelling and parties, those were my MBA times. The it was all about A Little Gesture, when you don't really write about your day life anymore because i) it is confidential and ii) people probably don't want to read about it. And then it was a lot about C's upcoming arrival and then radio silence. I wonder if now all will be about going back to work. I never thought I would

Today became a bad day - and all for the bad reasons. I did really well in leaving the house in the morning. C was sleeping and I controlled myself not to wake her up. I went to work calmly and I did not look back. I even enjoyed the first meetings. But I could not stop thinking about what was bothering me. And it bothered me even more that my return to work had to be further complicated by something else other than me missing C.  I was never very good at dealing with situations where I felt personally damaged, but historically dealing with professional problems had never been affected by my crying gene. And that bothers me even more. It bothers me even more because not only was I completely unable to explain myself and my reasoning but I also managed to make it worse by sounding like a desperate woman coming back to work and screaming hysterically to get her job back (without the screaming). Moreover, I should have known that at this point in time i would not be able to control my emo

It is the new buzz word - or should I say sentence. What would you do if you were not afraid. I like to think I am not - I guess man or woman, we all do. But my answer to that question would not come blank for me - at all. And it is not being afraid because I am a woman, it is really because life can pose a threat big enough to some less expected things. The one that comes to mind today is ' I would write my book '. Note that I did not say I would write 'a' book but 'my' book. In fact I should probably even say 'one of them'. I think i have started 3 real ones by now, and 2 have a decent shot as well. But the reality I face is - what if no one wants to read it? Who will want to read what I have to say?  When I was a kid, I would write a ton of poetry. I wrote the first poem on record about the moon and the stars and as I received some first prize on my fourth grade, my parents found out about it. For many years, no matter what I bought as a gift for my d

But that we already knew. Some days feel so easy and others not really that much. But the easy days just make you feel like you can do it all - like going back to blogging, read a book, sort out clothes or just sit on the sun thinking of the business model you want to do. All this in the 2 hours in between less peaceful moments, all this ready to blow up on the next curve. You feel like time flies but now you can handle it and fly with it rather than just seeing the airplanes go by. 

When your phone breaks (or falls in the water to be accurate), one tends to be upset at the loss. It is both an economic and an emotional loss. When I saw my beloved iPhone 3G on water I barely reacted. I grabbed it, dried it and thought - oh it's alive! I was told to put it on rice for 2 days and I did and wait patiently which I also did. The thing I missed the most was my Whatsapp but I used my iPad to keep me entertained. 2 days later, I took it out of rice and I am impressed to say it works. But the problem it had once it fell was still the same - my screen had no light, so I could only see it under a direct lamp. Still I did not panic and I did not rush. At least it meant I could still back up everything. But today, barely 24 hours from having my new iPhone 5, I guess this is why I did not panic really. A new really cool phone to play with, but all my apps, photos and music on it. Yes, it sucks that I had to re-login to all the apps and move them and organise them again but it

I have recently taken on reading fairy tales. Yes, C already enjoys them, or at least she often falls asleep as I read them continuously - maybe it is just the sound of my voice but I like to think she is listening. Anyway, the first three I read got me thinking maybe I should do some edits to the end. Surprised? Well let's see - the frog prince it is about a princess who is rewarded by actually having broken a promise but being lucky that her king father makes her keep it. The frog is converted to prince if he is tendered for a nice princess for 3 days and 3 nights but it is not like she takes care of him, she actually quite despises him. Then, Jack and the Magic Bean is about how much this little boy Jack stills from the Ogre and is never told of by his mum as he gets greedier and greedier. And then, when he gets caught he cuts the tree and the Ogre dies and the boy and the mum live happy ever after. Since when is stilling a feat to be celebrated? Just because he is stilling from

Some days you can think it is all better even if there is no sign of improvement at all. I guess it is the sun out there and the fact that we can finally do a bbq and spend time outside even if that means I need to dress C in an extra layer. Yes, it is definitely below 15 but the sun and the terrace are too appealing. Yesterday I even had a pimms. The other thing is that I have been letting a lot out in the last 24 hours - writing, talking et al. It helps, it's the best way to keep you from going down, it's to grab the bull by the horns and make sure it does not become something you need to press down and hide. So all looks better today even though C is still eating for the last hour and spent the morning since 7am taking 10-15 minutes naps...

If i ever thought it would take a 3 week old to keeping me from keeping my cool I would have thought myself wrong. But I admit there are hours that are more of a challenge. I think the worse is the feeding or the lack thereof. It is hard to feel you need 'time off' after that one hour and a half and you can't help but feel like sh*** because you are not supposed to need time off! And plus the rest is also the fun stuff, so you want to be doing fun stuff too... But you just can't do it all because that weighs on your sanity. I guess I need the sanity more than the sleep so I will try to go back to my old self and sleep less to stretch the day. Let's see how that works out!

It is hard for someone like me, someone so used to being on top of everything though always fighting time. Someone used to just sleeping less to sort any delays, to just do one more stretch and methodically go through my to do list. And now I have no control. Don't get me wrong, I am loving it, C is a piece of heaven and she is truly not a difficult baby. But perhaps she comes after is and she is awake a lot in the afternoon which means she takes control of the afternoons!! Sometimes she is just being interactive, listening or cuddling so it is not like i even notice. Bi just get to 7pm and say - oh day is gone again! We will find a way!

It has almost been a week and though it is still hard to believe we are some miles away from that feeling. The past six days have been intense and the funny thing is i can't help but think I had the best preparation for motherhood - investment banking... And B had consulting. It is a marathon, not a sprint, as people always say, though it may feel like a sprint in many laps. It will be intense like a sprint but it it will over last your patience, tolerance and best understanding like a marathon. I might struggle enjoying all the wonders of all the 'first times' would i not have a past of sleeping at late hours, short nights and recovering with a few couple of hours and no more. Yes, it is still hard on me, but i am amazed to just focus on the beauty of it and the aftermath that easier also means the wonder is replaced by anything less than a miracle like feeling.

Everything is so hard to believe at the moment. Hard to believe it all happened yesterday. Hard to believe she is here. Hard to believe she is here already. Hard to believe she is ours to keep. Hard to believe this little life now depends on us and everything we do will have an impact on her. And hard to understand all that this means in real terms.

So we had a last minute urge to comply with our long dated plan to take one last weekend out as a two rather than three, or as a two not leaving three behind. We found a nice little spot in Suffolk, not to far and not too close (hopefully close enough) with not much to do other than read, nap and watch movies. Even the guest internet is not working, mobiles barely have reception and I must say walking in the rain is overrated if you are carrying a 5kg plus football around your waist. We will try to go for a walk, after all the sun is out, but this weekend we don't want to do anything because we should, we just want to do because we would. With or without number three it is always hard for us to just do as we please. It is just not our kind. So today that is what we will do - as an example, there is a wedding party starting in the bar and we will still be sitting here by the fire place. Fine, we moved out of the main area, mostly because we did not want to show in the pictures. But

Yes it is now Friday. And I must admit I am extremely grateful for that. It has been a long week and I am feeling my commute and my days are getting longer. I was relatively good this week. I went for a swim only once but I still took it easy in the mornings. But i finally had a meeting with a foundation yesterday and i had doctor today so it is hard to do everything. Story of my life. But I am impressively not concerned about it. All went as planned, and that is unusual and nice. This weekend i will have the entire time for myself so i plan to make use of that! To just catch up with missing pieces and try to sleep and swim. Maybe I can still improve my weekly swimming average! Baby might like that. What Baby really likes is to know she has a new friend on the way. Just as we were inspired by one another, Baby's friend will also be the same, in the same order. And that makes us very happy. Almost part of a plan we never thought we would execute on living miles apart. So that mak

Today I am losing it. I can just tell. The fact I can no hold a position without pain for more than 5 minutes clearly does not help. I feel like i should be taking it easier, i feel like I can't deliver, I feel like there are such other greater things in life that the weight is just too much. I want to spend time thinking about what to do to raise more funds I want to spend time doing things for pea I want to spend time with the book I have not read in 10 days and I was really enjoying I want to find a nanny check out on schools get ready for the aftermath I want to do proper work when I am at work I want to blog i want to play the piano i want to write Why is it that most of my blogging always end up being about time management?

Some days i get it right some days i get it sort of right :) (I am sure some days I will also get it wrong) Today was a sort of right kind of day. I finally went swimming. That was good. First thing in the morning, a good walk in the morning cold and LA fitness here i am for my 3 day trial. The swim was good and the first challenge was to actually get out of the pool. Gravity hit me big time and I realized i had not been 'carrying' the weight of my little one during the last 30 minutes, and it suddenly all went back to me. The second challenge was to climb the stairs from the basement -2 to the ground floor to actually make my way home. But looking back it went pretty smoothly and i was very proud of myself. Until off course i realized the clock had not really stopped clicking for me. And them it just went all the way insane, trying to go through a to do list that grows by the hour while at the same time trying to manage our first emergency in mozambique. And no matter ho

So here i an writing this blog about how today is a new start, letting it burst out of my head all the good stuff that in all honesty only comes out once, and i hit the wrong key and it is all gone. I am sure the person in front of me in the tube thinks I am some kind of robot by the way I am typing frantically on my iphone. What he does not know is that this second time round I can not avoid the typos I did not do in the first 1000 words I put out because now it is just not the same and I know i wont be saying all i was feeling and trying to say because I won't be feeling it, I will just be thinking about what I was feeling and writing before because I thought those words to be the best and those feelings to be the most genuine. It is almost like when I was a kid and I had these rashes of inspiration during an insomnia or even in my sleep and I would compose a poem in one go. Most nights I would tell myself I would put on paper by the morning but I would either forget it never re