Hello and welcome back to The Mummy Juggle, a series designed with Mums (or Dads) in mind to share stories and inspiration about how to cope with the day-to-day struggle of juggling work and family life. A struggle I’ve affectionately named ‘The Mummy Juggle.’
The Mummy Juggle: ‘The non-stop juggling act of being a mother, holding down a job, running a home and generally being an all round superwoman!’
This month I have a Mummy Juggle with a twist as it’s actually by a Dad, Phil. In this months edition Phil from Parenting Phils shares his story about how he and is partner finally became parents and the struggles he has found juggling work, fatherhood and day-to-day life! I love this months edition because it shows ‘the juggle is real’ for anyone, not just Mums!!
Thanks so much Phil for your story. In honour of you, I’m renaming this months edition ‘The Daddy Juggle’!
You can find previous contributions to this series here, here and here.
Phil from Parenting Phils in The Daddy Juggle
Being a dad was something I had always dreamed about, and for quite a while adoption was something really on my mind, however it was it clear that it wasn’t on my partner’s. I finally swallowed that dream and tried to move on from the idea.
About 6 months later, he was working away in India and totally out of the blue sent me a link to our local authority website. The link was to a story about two young boys who were looking for their forever home. The text that came with it read “I think we could offer kids like these a great home” and was then followed by another text saying that the organisation was hosting an information day the following week and that we should go.
After I picked myself up off the floor and wiped up the gin that I’d spat across the room, I read the stuff he’d sent over and all those feelings that I’d been trying to supress suddenly came flooding back. I obvs text Pips (my bestie and blogging buddy) immediately who’s response was… “I knew he would… he just needed time to come to it himself”.
Anyway, I didn’t question it for fear he’d change his mind, so we hopped, skipped and jumped along to the information event and the rest is history!
Just over 3 years later and I find myself living the ‘mummy juggle’ nightm… dream!
We adopted twin boys aged 18 months (now almost 4!) and after 12 months adoption leave, we decided it was right for me to give up work and focus on the boys. I’ve loved the time I’ve had off with them and whilst it’s been tough at times, it was definitely worth it from a bonding & attachment point of view. But now I find myself preparing for them to go to school in September and thinking ‘What the… am I going to do with myself?’
I’ve been blogging for almost a year now and it’s safe to say that it takes a lot more time and effort than I had expected and whilst I really enjoy it I do question whether I need to put my energies, once I have a bit more spare time, into something that will earn me a bit more pocket money for the family?
The truth is I have absolutely no idea what I want/can do, 3 years at home has left me feeling pretty deskilled… unless you can get paid for catching twin 1 vomit with one hand whilst wiping the nose tap of twin 2 with the other hand? Now that is serious juggling but I’m not sure I’ll run off to the circus just yet and looking after other people’s kids is definitely NOT going to happen!
If I’m being really honest, by the time I’ve dropped them off, done some blogging, laundry, cleaning, shopping, walking the dogs and other mundane stuff (like taking a nap), it’ll be time to pick them back up and time to put my chef, cleaning and referee hats back on! Think I’ll give up the idea up now as a bad one! Working mums are my heroes!
Phil blogs with his friend Phillipa (a.k.a. then Phils) over at Parenting Phils. Their aim is to give you your “phil” on everything parenting, whether it be a new gadget or toy or the good, the bad and damn right ugly of parenting. Both have boys under the age of three and have been friends for over twenty years. You can find the Parenting Phils on social media here.
I set up the Mummy Juggle series as I was interested in hearing from other Mums on how they deal with the daily struggle of working life in the hope that it will provide a place for Mums to share tips on how to make life a little easier. If you enjoyed this post and have a story to tell that you would like to see featured, please drop me a line at emma@thehalcyonyears.com x
