On My Mind: What Next?

When my babiest bear turned four, my thoughts started to turn towards what I’m going to do when he starts school next year. I don’t want to sit around home watching bad telly, but I also don’t want to work full-time; the last time I worked in New Zealand was almost ten years ago, and I don’t have a job – or a career – to step back into.

I toy with the idea of going back to university, but I’m not sure what I want to study. For a long time I wanted to obtain a Master of Counselling, but I’m not as passionate about that as I once was. I think approaching 40 makes me question whether I’m past that stage in life, but then I think of the number of clever people I know who have gone back to study, and I know that age really isn’t a valid excuse. Maybe I’m scared of failing, of not being able to keep up…but that’s silly, because I’m a bit of a nerd, and an organised one at that!

I play with the idea of finding a 9am-2pm job so I can still take my boys to school and pick them up at the end of their day. A job where I don’t have to think too hard or work extra hours…but I know that I would go insane if I wasn’t challenged in some way.

Something I am seriously thinking about is starting my own business, but that’s going to take a lot more planning and thought. The appeal of that is being able to set my own hours and therefore still be available for my kids. I’m doing some investigating…but am I really the businesswoman type?

I’d love for this blog to be my “job”, but the reality is that I don’t have the audience numbers, I don’t have a “niche”, nothing makes me stand out from any of the other mummy bloggers around. I also think that in order to really make it as a blogger in New Zealand, being based in Auckland is three-quarters of the battle won?? I’m not being self-pitying or looking for plaudits, I’m simply being realistic. And to be honest, I’m not sure that I’d enjoy all the pressure that would come with being paid for something I genuinely love doing.

We’re incredibly fortunate to be in a position where I can stay at home with and for our children right now. I’m very lucky to have a husband who is not pressuring me think about this, but I know he realises that I won’t be content to be a lady of leisure, and will support me in whatever I decide to do – and whenever I decide to do it.

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Hi, July. Oh wait…bye, July.

I’m not convinced that this month will have featured the required 31 days.

I’ll wait while you work that out using your knuckles.

July has 31 days, right? Right. So now, sage reader, tell me where in the cheesecake have those almost-31 days disappeared to??!!

How can we be two months through winter (or summer, for those on the flip-side) and it be almost August and that the first half of the year has gone already?? I just….can’t. I can’t work out where July has disappeared to, I really can’t.

I know that two weeks of it were taken up by school holidays, and that Lego and a few fun outings took up those days, but that leaves approximately 13 days virtually unaccounted for.

I vaguely recollect that the start of the month – and therefore the end of term – passed with two very tired, grumpy boys living in this house. They were both exhausted after a term of extended kindy hours, and football practises and games. There was a visit from my sister and her lovely fam-bam in there too, which meant a few days of family fun and late nights. There were endless days of washing drying inside due to rain, and time spent trying to pin down a plumber and organise house stuff. There were coffee dates and play dates, and vacuuming rice bubbles off the floor every single day.

Hmmm, now that I think about it, I can see where the past 27 days have gone. We’ve been busy living and doing and being.

Huh. How novel.

 

 

Random Thoughts on Thursday: all about teeth

Teeth. Funny little things, without which we would struggle to do a lot of things. It’s all about teeth here this week…

~ Porter-the-kitten lost a fang the other day. Do you know how I know? Because I found it on my kitchen bench. If I was typing this on my phone, this is where I’d insert the wide-eyed “what the…?” emoji. On the bench. Ew.

~ it’s apparently unusual, but a six-year-old can teeth. Tiny has his adult molars coming through, and he’s like a baby, shoving his fingers in his mouth as frequently as he can. The dentist we saw yesterday has told him he shouldn’t, and I’m hoping her words will stick where mine haven’t.

~ Pickle has over-crowded teeth, and hypomineralisation, which combine to give him extra-sensitive, extra-vulnerable little chompers. Add in the fact that he loves sweet things and is a reluctant tooth-brusher, and you have a recipe for disaster. Luckily, his wee mouth is clear so far, but we need to be extra-vigilant from now on. Try telling that to the nearly-four-year-old who wants to be Mr Independent!

~ it’s been over six months since my braces came off, but sometimes I still feel like they’re there. Phantom braces?? Is that a thing??

~ kids all around us are losing their baby teeth but Tiny’s are holding fast. I’m quietly loudly glad about this, as wiggly teeth give me the heebie-jeebies. I’m sure my own didn’t bother me as a kid, but now…the sight of a near-vertical tooth makes me want to vomit. Husband will be dealing with the wigglers, that’s for certain.

Random Thoughts on Thursday

(I’ll give you a moment to recover from the shock of seeing one of these posts after such a long time)

…………………………………..
Ready? Okay, cool. Ahem. Random thinkings I have thunked recently:

~ the first frost of the season will always come as a real shock to the system. It will throw you off completely, making you later leaving the house than you already were because you’ll be searching for one lost mitten, unjamming a jammed zip, chasing a child while waving a beanie threateningly in their general direction, and trying to remember whether it’s cold water or warm water you need to pour over your car windscreen? And then when your little cherubs are safely buckled into their car seats, you’ll realise you can’t really leave the kettle by the gate, so you have to turn off the ignition, unbuckle yourself and race the kettle back into the kitchen, race back to the car, start the engine again, and hear your nearly-four-year-old wail that his seat belt has come undone. Much like your mind, by this point.

~ raspberry seeds and tomato seeds can, and will, get stuck in the permanent wire retainers stuck to the back of teeth after braces are removed.

~ kittens can purr and attack at the same time.

~ my shins will always find a low stool in any room. It’s a very special talent.

~ if you buy crackers for your kids, and crackers for yourself, your kids will nearly always say they don’t like those kids’ crackers and will proceed to annihilate the packet of fancy-pants grown-ups’ crackers, before smiling sweetly and asking if they can now have the other ones.

~ “we” have lost a small slipper. “We” can’t remember when “we” last saw it, and “we” want to wear our gumboots to kindy and take our slippers to wear in kindy. “We” think  mummy should just buy new slippers, but mummy doesn’t think a slipper can vanish into thin air and is therefore waiting for it to turn up. “We” don’t like this idea and have made our feelings known. Loudly.

Don’t be fooled by that innocent little face. He’s purring, and he’s also about to launch himself at you, claws extended.

Random Thoughts on Thursday

~ my braces haven’t really bothered me too much over the last 18 months, but now that they are nearly off, I can’t stand them anymore. And suddenly, all the children I’ve seen almost daily during that time (not my own, obviously) have only just seemed to notice I’m wearing them.

~ Spring is one of my favourite seasons, in part because our garden comes alive and is beautiful, and in part because of asparagus. Some people can’t get past the whole smelly wee thing, but I say just hold your nose when you go.

~ the little girl who has been helping Tiny with cutting things out at school fractured her elbow last week, so the two of them have been giggling together about how they have just two workable arms between them….

~….but tomorrow, Tiny will be able to do all the cutting for everyone, because his sling is finally off. Hurrah! He has been amazing over the past four weeks, and I’m so very proud of how well he’s coped, but I’m also ecstatic he can almost (two weeks of cautious play) get on with the business of being a crazy five-year-old boy again.

~ I’m constantly vacuuming rice bubbles off the dining room carpet at the moment…I wonder what would happen (other than me going loco) if I left them for a few days…

~ Milky Ways are the unsung heroes of the chocolate world…whipped nougat? Oh Em Gee.

~ There are Halloween decorations and sweets intermingling with Christmas decorations and sweets at the supermarket, and I’m not sure I can cope.

~ dry shampoo….I just can’t do it. I’ve tried, oh how I’ve tried, but…sorry Mrs L, I just can’t do it!

Random Thoughts on Thursday

This episode of RTOT is dedicated to my gorgeous friend, Jess xxx

~ I check on my boys and give them one last kiss before I go to bed each night, and it never ceases to amaze me how often they mirror each other’s sleeping positions, even though Pickle goes to bed at least half-an-hour earlier than Tiny.

~ mending piles always look much more menacing than they really are. All that procrastination for five minutes worth of effort.

~ the perfect Lego storage system DOES NOT EXIST. I wish it did, but nope, it really doesn’t.

~ daffodils provide me with an annual dilemma: do I enjoy them in the garden, or pick them to enjoy inside?? This week, the dilemma has been solved – momentarily – by my mum bringing us a huge bunch from her garden. I feel like I should be hashtagging this #firstworldproblems.

~ chocolate buttons are highly underrated.

~ bagels should never be served untoasted. In my opinion. But…it’s a fact, really.