Month: June 2018

Its 9 hours till I start my new job. Not only I have not recovered from the jet leg, Bella is sick and I am also sick with a cold.

Well many mothers told me watch out when your baby gets sick you normally catch it too. Of course I would, I was holding her whole night while her little nose kept running and running. All the germs…but still all the love and cuddles.

How do I feel about starting a full time job at a new company and in a relatively new filed? I am nervous. What I feel nervous the most is not about the job itself. Rather its the things outside of the job. How do I balance it all? Can I still spend enough time with Bella? How about my relationship with Magnus? Can I still have time to help out my parents when they need some support? So many questions racing through my mind. To calm me down, I think there are a few things will help me to remember:

1. Perfection does not exist. I won’t aim to be the perfect mother and also be the best at my job. I will contribute what I can in a calm and collective manner. However, I won’t stress over if I came home a bit late or have to work over weekend a little. Or I need to take time off work to be with Bella when she needs me. All things flow and change, its not the absolute one moment which will break or make things. Its more important to keep going smoothly than struggling over every little turn with guilt and anxiety. Life is complicated, there is no such thing as the perfect execution.
2. Motherhood comes all different forms, love is the main theme and the core of it all. I will probably sometime feel like I should stay home full time to be committed with Bella. However, knowing myself, being able to work is very important to me. The sense of achievement and team work I get through building a career will enable me to be a better person. I will appreciate my time with my family even more when I work. Sometime I easily take things for granted, and I know if I stay home full time I will become bored and grow bitter towards my role.
3. Work is an ongoing part of my life, I will learn new things and there will be days I feel stand still and not moving anywhere. That is ok. Making a living require some grit and patience. If the job enable me to grow and meet like minded people, then its a reward. Also I am able to make a better life with the money I bring home.
4. Watch my temper. Sometime I lose what is really important in front of me when I am focusing on a project. I need to slow down and cope with interruptions. Instead of getting frustrated with interruptions, I shall see them as little opportunities for taking a break in between finishing a task.

There are so many women I look up to who hold down a career while being a great mum. My mum and my mother in law are two such people. My mum has been a chemistry teacher her whole life, she even published text books during her career. She also gave my brother and me the best childhood memories and took us on many wonderful family adventures. My mother in law has been a nurse working with cancer patients her whole career, She is still working and I can tell she is very good at her job. She raised three beautiful children, and I was lucky to marry one of them. These women make me feel that I can do this. I can be a mum and also enjoy life as a mix of work, family, hobbies and many many layers of things.

Life is rich, so why not to live it to the full?

Today is the fourth day we have been back to NZ from our Europe trip, we are all struggling a bit with Isabella’s sleeping or lack of sleep at night.

Isabella is 15 months old when we started the trip, she just learnt to take her first few steps. On the way to Spain, we first took 17 hours flight to Dubai then spent one night at a hotel near the airport.  The next early morning we took another 8 hours fly to Madrid. Once we landed in Madrid, we picked up the rental car and Magnus drove for 4 hours to get to Albir near Alicante where our family was staying.

Isabella was wonderful on the way there, she slept most of the way on the long flight. For the time she was awake, we entertained her with some cartoons on my laptop and lots of snack and toys we specially prepared for this trip. Magnus and I were also really excited about the time in Spain especially bringing Isabella to meet the whole family in person for the first time. The anticipation and the joy made the way flying there quite enjoyable. She also slept really well for her first night when we reached Spain, so the jet leg was easily managed.

After a beautiful 4 weeks holiday with families soaking in the sun and eating lots of delicious food, we headed back to NZ. We know its another brutal long trip, so we booked  a really nice hotel in Dubai, The Palace Downtown, its located right in the city centre and next to the Dubai Mall. The world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa is right above us, our room looked out to the man-made lake which also featured the famous Dubai light show in the evening. Although we just spent less than 48 hours there, Dubai is mind-blowing. The islamic culture reminds me a lot of my childhood. The crazy design of the buildings brings us to a Si-fi movie scene. I have full respect to what they achieved out in the desert, and I also understand there are some deeper issues and prices which come with all these grandness.

From Auckland to Dubai, the Emirates flight attendants remembered us from the flight we took 4 weeks ago. I guess Isabella’s chubby cheeks left some impressions. The long flight from Dubai to Auckland, we were lucky to have the whole row of 4 seats to us on the plane. Isabella could stretch out and sleep instead of sleeping on my laps for hours. She was a bit more restless this time as she is older and understand more things and have more demands than 1 month ago. Magus is the calm in the storm, always up to take her for a stroll along the aisles, I just feed her lots when she is sleepy. We were quite pleased how she was on these super long flights.

These past few days at home she has been up between 12-4am and having difficult to go back to sleep, as it is day time in Spain. She cries a lot and we just have to be patient and hope she will eventually gets back to her routine. I’m starting a new job in three days, so here is hope to some decent sleeps for my first week in the new role.

Till the next adventure with this little one and kudos to those solo parent taking babies on flights.