Anyone would think I was pregnant! I just can’t get my finger out of my ass and back into work. I think it’s the lethal combination of Christmas and pregnancy that has knocked me for six.
Trying to be the breadwinner, cook, cleaner and childminder is wearing me down. My day job is overseeing a failing Citrix installation (not my fault – third party screw-up). Plus I’ve got about three websites on the boil at the moment which need attention before one of my clients starts complaining! No-one has ever complained to me before – I usually work with more urgency than the client – so they’re usually pleased with me!
With a sick, pregnant spouse, and me trying to keep the house on the right side of hygienic, the kids are suffering a little at the moment. They’re not getting the right amount of attention, and it all comes out in short fuses, whinging and full-blown tantrums. Of course, the vicious circle of this is that we become ratty with the kids, and shouting at them just makes matters worse.
The point is, our kids reward us when we’re getting it right. I don’t know if this is true for you. When I take my daughter for a walk or read her a book, she’ll stop frequently to kiss and hug me. She’s doing a thing at the moment where she takes my face in her hands and tells me, “Daddy, you and me are the bestest!”.
If I play the Sesame Street website with my son, he laughs and babbles and jumps up and down on my knee. He nearly destroys the keyboard, but it makes him happy!
So, we’re not doing too well on the parenting scoreboard at the moment. The moral of the story is: prioritize. A hug from my daughter is worth more to me than designing a website, more than my boring, demoralizing job! These are the young people we should be pouring our efforts into, and not just out of duty. It should be to cherish every moment we have with these little people and to watch them grow with smiles on our faces and chests puffed out with pride.
I said in an earlier entry that we’d have to revise the business plans. That’s coming. A few commitments to meet with current clients, but after that I’ll take on smaller projects and only when I know they won’t interfere with the family.
Why? Because every time I see my kids slipping into cranky, I know I’m not doing enough to stimulate their minds or showing them enough attention. Kids are clever – if they can’t get attention by fair means, they’ll quickly turn to foul!