88. Spend a day on my own (without J-cub)

A slight amendment to today's list item - I spent the day away from the house, and away from J-cub. As I said in my difficulties post, it's practically impossibly for me to spend a whole day entirely on my own.

Although I miss him terribly when we're apart, a day away from J-cub is as much of a break and a rest as I'm going to get, and to be honest, it was much needed.

I left the house this morning for a workshop - which is a kind of training/consultancy day for my job which we have 3 times a year. Workshops are very mentally stimulating, and hard work, but I get a massive sense of achievement from them and start getting excited about what we're going to work on during the months ahead.

I'm obviously out of the loop at the moment, and going through the notes for the last year today I've started to realise just how much I have to catch up on, how much I need to do to get things back on track when I start back, and how hard and tiring it is making my brain work again.

I am really excited about going back to work now though, although my overwhelming feeling is of pain at being separated from J-cub. I'm also having a bit of difficulty marrying my feelings of loving my job and wanting to carry on doing it, with the fact that I don't get paid very much money, certainly no more than I did when I started working straight out of University, and nowhere near as much as I kind of think I should be able to. Money isn't everything: I'm not a terribly materialistic person, but we are really struggling with having another mouth to feed at the moment, and I'm also getting quite broody again. I'd love to be able to have another child without a thought as to how I'd cope with less maternity pay (because I was working full time before, but going back part time now), more childcare costs, and the sheer cost of raising more than one child.

So this is just something I'm struggling with at the moment. Do I stay in my job, which I love, but which has no prospects and will definitely end in 2 and a bit years, or do I try and carve out some sort of career which is going to bring in a bit more money, and thus satisfy me that way? 2 days after I found out I was pregnant, I received a letter telling me I was accepted to do a Masters degree. I had to defer, and have since deferred again as I couldn't imagine doing it with J-cub in tow. That degree would have qualified me to take a step up, to work in the same field but at the next level.

I'm just not sure I could cope with the intensity of the degree now, on top of working and raising a baby. Plus it's located in Bangor, North Wales, so would have meant weekly flights from Cardiff to Anglesey.

I'm really just thinking aloud here (aloud? In print. Whatever, you know what I mean). I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Back to today ... so Jamie was staying at home, looking after the boy. He was due for his swine flu jab this afternoon, so Jamie managed to get the buggy onto the bus (first bus ride for J-cub - wooo!), ride it to the next town, hang around waiting for the appointment, get called in, and get asked 3 questions. One of which is: "Is he allergic to eggs?". The answer, of course, is yes. So no jab for J-cub, and why they couldn't have told me that when I booked the appointment, I don't know.

I'd already left work to come back and pick them up, thinking that J-cub might be all sore and upset after his jab, and would rather not wait an hour for the bus back. I picked them up, brought them home, had a little cuddle with J-cub (because I missed him, okay, I couldn't actually spend the whole day apart from him) and went back to bed. I had a blissful sleep, and Jamie woke me up as he was putting J-cub to bed.

All in all, it was a confusing, but happy and satisfying day. And I hope you, dear readers, accept it as counting for this list item, albeit with a little artistic license.

And just to rub in how much I love my job, I've tried to find a photo of the amazing view. I can't, so have a photo of some of the wild ponies in the field (they jump in and can't get out until we open the gate and shoo them away), right outside the window. Yes, that's the sea you can see in the background. It really is the most beautiful place.

Day 58: Mission complete.