Decisions, Decisions....

Help. Brainache.
I hate making decisions like this at the best of times, but now Miranda is here, my decisions carry more weight than usual, because whatever I decide affects her as well. I want more than anything to do the best I can for her, but sometimes I am not sure what that is.

This isn't really a Miranda-blog post (she is doing great, growing incessantly, eating tons and filling her nappy at inopportune moments and then looking very proud of herself!) This is more about my own insecurities! My issue at the moment is What Happens Post-PhD. I am supposed to go back to it after maternity leave in January, and get it finished by April. But of course, as soon as I finish it, my funding dries up. It's a daft situation that gives no incentive to finish the thesis at all...The end of uni means suddenly losing a very large proportion of our joint income, and Carl cannot support all three of us.

The most logical thing for me to do would be to pursue a career in academia, although at 27 with only a years' experience in a graduate job to my name, I think I am past the point at which I can use the word "career" with any degree of plausibility. I've applied for four academic jobs now, lectureships in Sheffield and York, and the average salary for that sort of job would mean that I could happily support us all, so Carl could give work and spend time with Miri. He would revel in that, I think. It would also have other benefits like moving house and getting out of Darlington finally. However, I did not even get shortlisted for any of those jobs, and one had NINETY TWO applicants. It is utterly hopeless, especially since there are so, so few of them in the first place.

Unless Carl miraculously finds a better job; we can't afford for me not to work. The very last thing I want is to have to find a job that I don't want to do, just to pay the bills, especially when that would also mean a huge chunk of my wages would go towards childcare for Miranda. It is counter-productive and not something I want to consider at all. She's too young!

My coffee van isn't the answer either. I at best make pocket money off it at the moment, just doing the markets. Even if I tried to do more with it, the bigger Miranda gets, the more impractical it would be. I can't entertain her or pay her much attention when I'm serving coffee at the same time and she'd hate sitting in the van all day on her own, it wouldn't be fair on her. And I couldn't inflict winter market stalls in the snow on her either.

So, I did come up with another option, which is, running my own business and finally setting up the cafe I've been on about for years. Unfortunately this has to be in Darlington which I know is not the best place. However, the one thing that I do love about this place is my wonderful collection of completely batty friends. Two of them are coming on board with this project as well. We are planning on sharing the rent on a retail unit, and opening as a cafe and writers' workshop by day and studio for Burlesque classes by night. It's called Afternoon Tease. I am completely in love with the idea, not least because it is an opportunity to do what I love, but also gives me the freedom to take Miranda along with me, thus avoiding having to pay to abandon her with strangers.

But it is not as simple as that. Due to the disinterest of the landlord, we haven't managed to get in to the unit we wanted, which is more than a little frustrating especially since there isn't actually any real reason other than this guy's slowness. Plans for getting round this hurdle have included Body Parts Squashed In New Pannini Machine, and so on. On a more practical level, we looked round another unit today. It would do us very nicely and has a lot of advantages, but it is three times the price and involves signing a terrifyingly long lease agreement.

I am worried about this. I have got some much riding on this, because the cafe idea honestly feels like my only option. But then, is it a good idea to try and bring Miranda up in a coffee shop? Would I end up neglecting her? Shouldn't I be revelling in New Motherhood and not worrying about working again given that she's only three months old? I just don't know. And then there are the financial worries. The long lease means agreeing to pay a very high rent for a very long time, and I lack the confidence to trust in the fact that a coffee shop could make a lot of money relatively quickly. Without Miri, I am sure I wouldn' be worrying about this anything like as mucb. I do still have an income that can buffer the worse of the financial hardship we are likely to encounter, and I won't need to actually make a living off this for quite a while yet. But I don't want to get tied down into something I can't afford for so long.

I don't know what to dooooooooo!!!

Granny, Mummy and Miri outside what could be the Afternoon Tease coffee shop.

Family

Cute Little Things on the Line!

Miranda is 10 weeks old now! Unbelievable. She is now sleeping through the night, (almost!), has full control of her neck, has grown out of all her newborn clothes and best of all, she has started smiling, gurgling and giggling! She is soooo beautiful and I love it when she starts talking to me in Miri-speak. She is also capable of registering her disgust when necessary:

"We are not amused."

I haven't updated this blog for a while because everything has been completely hectic for the past few weeks. We dared to Go Out without her once; it was our eleventh anniversary and we left Miri in the capable hands of Auntie Jo and Uncle Graeme. I armed them with the Miranda Dictionary (see below) and they did a great job - and I resisted the urge to ring them every five minutes to check on her! Mum asked the other day if all my friends are going to be Honorary Aunts and Uncles. I still have Honourary Auntie Cathy - Mum's best friend, so I see no reason why not. Sadly Miranda will have no aunts or uncles on my side of the family, although Mum and one other friend with a good memory have commented on the fact that Miri, on occasion, looks a little bit like Uncle Rohan. Something about the gumpy grin, and her expression sometimes. I don't know if mine are genuine memories of how Rohan looked, or whether my imagination and wishful thinking are filling in the gaps... Despite my sad lack of siblings now though,  I have a lot of wonderful friends who I hope will be around to see her grow up. I've been Auntie Bel to little Ione since she was born so I'll return the favour!

At five weeks old, I had to take Miri to the photographers to get her passport photo done. Yep, even tiny babies are now expected to have their own passports, complete with straight-on-white-background-eyes-open-head-shot-photograph. It's hard enough getting the photo right in the first place, but I pity the customs people who have to tell the difference between month-old babies. Even more stupidly, she'll have this passport until she is five years old. She doesn't look the same a month later, let alone four years later....

Anyway, Miri has to have a passport so we can go to South Africa to show her off to her only real aunt, Carl's sister, and her paternal grandad in Johannesburg. Carl has a neice who also has two children and one more on the way - these are the nearest Miranda has to cousins. So even more reason to appoint friends as adopted family - my friends are people she will actually see regularly! Even so, I am really looking forward to Miri's first adventure abroad, seeing the in-laws again, and meeting my latest great-nephew!

Speaking of cousins though, my second cousin is most definitely Uncle Ol. He has a very very distant blood-relationship to Miri, but no matter how tentative the connection, he seems to absolutely adore her. It's really sweet, and this makes me smile a lot. I love my baby being admired! :) Ol came up last week under guise of helping me out with our Doctor Coffee stall - but really just to see Miranda, obviously. Miri is a fantastic advert for the business; so many people come up to see the cute baby and we waved coffee under their nose appropriately.

"I said I wanted a skinny three-shot caramelatte you fool!"

She is sitting on Granny's knee in that photo. The (grand-)parents came up for a few days last week as well, complaining that they hadn't seen Miranda in over a month! Could well be because they live 200 miles away.... Anyway, it was good to see them and of course they spoiled Miri rotten. It was difficult to prize her away from them; Dad must have taken hundreds of photos, Mum wouldn't let me push the pushchair at all the entire time they were up, and they even moaned when she was asleep! If it wasn't for the fact they couldn't feed her, I don't think we would have got her back at all, she would have been kidnapped and taken to the Welsh wilderness forever more.

Saltburn pier- one of the rare occasions I was allowed to hold my own daughter

 It does concern me that I am morphing in to my Mother, as the above photo demonstrates. Miranda's future will probably be decided pear-shaped! Having my parents around is reassuring in a strange way. Being Their Daughter makes me feel more like Me - I am used to that role. Being Miranda's Mummy is still a very new and unnerving concept. I've got to be All Growed Up, responsible, an Adult. I don't feel like it sometimes. It is all so scary still. I am so careful of Miranda, I just want to protect her from everything and I honestly couldn't bear it if anything hurt her! It's entirely irrational I know, but I just feel completely over-protective of her and at the same time, completely incapable and unprepared.

However, it is comforting that she seems to be such a happy little soul. The grins and the beginnings of little giggles make my heart melt. It is not just me and Carl now, we've gone from being a couple to being a family, and I think we're doing pretty well at it so far!

Our beautiful, happy little girl

Just Waiting...

So, that is it. I am done!
Just got back from my final trip to Sheffield prior to Cheese's arrival, and baby is due a month today! Official Maternity Leave from now until Christmas.

I am actually feeling quite sad. I do love being in Sheffield (although, without wanting to jinx things, I have found a seemingly perfect job to apply for which would allow us all to move down there, but it is a long shot!). I had a lovely evening catching up with people at uni, sitting in a sunny beer garden drinking orange juice - more's the pity. Most of my friends there are close to finishing their PhDs as well; stress is rife, and I am certainly not alone in being a little concerned about what to do next and what the future will bring. Perhaps it is even more worrying for me now as well - I have quite a few more responsibilties than most. The Real World is a scary place that none of us have visited in quite some time! I will miss the comfortingly safe bubble that is academia.

It is going to be highly odd NOT having deadlines and 10,000 word chapters to negotiate and hundreds of references to meticulously cite. As I write, I am sat in my usual spot in the coffee shop armed with the laptop, exactly as I usually am, except this time this blog is open on my screen, and not pages and pages of academese, or a hastily designed Powerpoint seminar or incomprehensible ejournals in PDF format. Miranda-Cheese has got hiccups, possibly a result of me drinking iced espresso. It's quite distracting, but this is the first time in a long time that I can actually enjoy distractions. I don't have to actually DO anything at the moment, it's unnerving. Put my feet up, relax, and dare I say it, "look after myself". Quelle horreur! And wait of course.

I do get the impression this next month is going to be a long one. There is still a fairly good chance she'll be late turning up anyway - a family failing. I could be waddling about, blimp-like, for another 6 weeks at least, rather than the month I am hoping for. Nevertheless, we're off to visit the Soon-to-be-Grandparents at the weekend, and taking my emergency hospital bag and the baby car seat *just in case*. The bag in question has a note stapled to it: "In case of Cheese-Related-Emergency, GRAB THIS!" Just in case Carl is panicking too.

Talking of panics, I stayed overnight in Sheffield with Cheese's honarary Uncle, who in a fit of early morning daftness, managed to set his own fire alarm off at 8.30am. Poor little cheese really jumped at the noise! My whole stomach bounced, it was so weird!! Proof enough that she can hear alright in there I guess. It was pretty uncomfy from my point of view - like being jabbed in stomach hard, but from the inside, out. Carl thought it was highly amusing, however. He's now taken to just staring at the belly going "we're really going to have one of those little Things soon, aren't we?". It is obviously becoming real now, even to him. Quick on the uptake, as ever.....

Lost In Translation

I scribbled the following back in February, when, at 23 weeks pregnant, I suddenly decided to go to a conference in Guatemala City... A few musings on impending motherhood to share...

What is it about sitting in airport bars at stupid times in the morning? I've done this so often - usually half collapsing with exhaustion - that it feels part of the experience now. The journey wouldn't be complete without my dramatic, romantic, self-indulgent 'lost in translation' moments. This time I am in New York's JFK airport. As far as I'm concerned, it is 3.20am, but in New York, it is only 10.30pm. The barman and two blokes sitting next to me are speaking Spanish, which is oddly comforting. To them, I am just another Gringa, but it is still nice to listen in unnoticed. And I much prefer a Latino accent to an American one. I am on route to Guatemala after all.

The first time I did this sort of thing - sat alone in a strange bar full of strangers in a strange country - I was only just sixteen, drinking melon flavoured cocktails underage in the hotel bar in Helsinki, having accidentally on purpose 'lost' the rather dull Finnish bloke I'd come out to meet. This time, for obvious reasons, I am not on the alcohol, but that is irrelevant. I am still luxuriating in anonymity and possibility. This time I am not alone, however; Little One is with me always, kicking her appreciation or annoyance. Right now I really am "navel-gazing", - with good reason. I have to grow up, be responsible for another tiny life rather than just myself, and that is both terrifying and exhilarating. Will this style of anonymity and possibility - the desire to experience everything I can, everywhere I can - ever wear off? What, after all, is the point? Intercontinental travel is lonely and exhausting. Why do I do this to myself? Unfortunately I think I need to travel more to find out the answer to that.

(Here's my Guatemala adventures on my work blog)