This Small Bus(y)ness...

I've always been a busy person. At school I played for every team. I did every extra class I could. I volunteered for anything and everything - camp counsellor, assistant at parent's evening, student representative. I also had a part time job, because I can't really cope with down time. I get bored.

I love the idea of lounging around in my PJs eating ice cream and watching Diagnosis Murder; but in reality, I'm over it within the hour and cleaning out the freezer and ironing tea towels.

The thing is though, while in the past busy meant achieving things: improving skills; earning money, learning new stuff; neat and tidy cupboards, now 'busy' just means 'surviving'.

My daily life can be split into three incredibly busy home related categories: getting everyone ready to go out of the house, keeping everyone alive whilst out of the house, trying to move everyone's crap so I can see any of the house. They are each as utterly repetitive and frustrating as one another since any progress is hampered by two small people whose own objectives seem to be mostly based around opposing my own.

It never really occurred to me prior to motherhood that as a stay at home mum I would have no time to 'do' anything in. I mean, as a teacher, I had 30 kids to pick up after and generally deal with the bullshit of. How hard could a couple be? And I'd never have to write reports about them...

I used to wonder what the hell colleagues had been doing in their maternity leave when they returned to work and hadn't done anything. I reckoned I'd write a book on my (theoretical, I wasn't having babies) mat leave. Oh, the irony! I'm certain I didn't even read a book in the first year of Abe's life, let alone write one.

And then there were two. And Holy Fucking Jesus. It's like one is the Coke and the other is a Mentos so when I'm not simply trying to keep us all alive and prevent the house from looking like it should be featured on 'Hoarders' I'm dealing with clashes that would no doubt challenge the world's top diplomats. Like all parents of small people, I tell myself that 'things will get easier' on a very regular basis.

At my most delusional and sleep deprived, I thought that I'd see a difference in how 'busy' I was once I didn't have to sit and feed Bette for up to 45 mins every few hours. But, quite why I imagined spending all day with a child who can climb like a koala and flicks power point switches like she has OCD would mean I was less busy I don't know.

I'm beginning to remember, as Bette approaches 15 months, that there's a reason why people generally go back to work after about a year off. And it's not got that much to do with HR requirements and everything to do with how much of a fuckwit your once cute, immobile, gurgly baby becomes.

In order to shower, for example, I have to come up with new and creative solutions each day to keep the baby busy. And no, toys won't do. Toys are passe. Climbing however, is not. So said solution needs to be one that I can utilise whilst in the bathroom as I have to lock her in with me for her own safety. Whatever I provide to do, must be more appealing than climbing on the other kid's step and from there the drawer handles - as if they were a purpose designed ladder - in order to get into the sink. But safer of course. Tricky, hey?

It might seem like madness then, given how busy I was/am, that I chose about 10 months ago, with a newborn baby and a husband about to leave his job to go and study medicine, to launch a business. And that I'm choosing right now, in the midst of all this chaos, to expand the sizes we offer and try and organise actually marketing our product as we head into (southern hemisphere) summer.

To be fair, as I look back on what I haven't achieved in the time I've had, it probably was. And every day when 8pm rolls around and I have a bit of a cry about the calls I never got to make and the website edits I failed to implement and the photos I forgot to import to use on our social media pages, I wonder why the hell I am trying to. In all the busy-ness, it's incredibly frustrating to try and fit in achieving (any of the) things I want to for the business.

But then Abe sees other swimmers when we're at the shops and declares that he likes his better. Or I have a really fucking brilliant idea for another print and get excited about pulling it together. Or I find an early and even more crap shot I took for Instagram back when we began. And I know that I can't help myself. That I have to do this because it's the one thing right now that is about more than my everyday grind and it's going to be brilliant one day. So, I remind myself that even if it doesn't really seem like I'm doing anything with Mermaids and Astronauts, I am. Just in totally minute jumps. Think 'flea' rather than 'kangaroo'.

If there's one thing living with two small people has started to teach me, it's that there is greatness in the small. In putting on your own shoes and learning how to high five. So if I'm starting to see the achievement in having organised just some of the toys into a nice size ordered pile; then perhaps it's time to see it in half filling out a market stall application during Bette's nap on Abe's daycare day too.

After all, half is better than none and she will sleep again next daycare Friday so I can do the rest. Or I'll enforce the totally erroneously named 'quiet time' in her cot for 30 minutes in which to try and do it anyway.

#luck #choices #Mum #Family #Chaos #success #Balance #Lifestyle