Make do, and mend.
I've been meaning to write this post for yonks now. I just don't have time to open the laptop and get it all off my chest.
My life has become a blur of extremes. Extreme tiredness, extreme happiness, extreme isolation, extreme suffocation. I'm up and down like a yo-yo and have avoided blogging about what is relevant to my life at the moment because I fear all I will sound is negative, worn out, and ungrateful. I am worn out, negative at times but I am far from ungrateful. As hard as life can be with two under two, I am so blessed to have such healthy babies, I am so blessed to have babies full stop.
Mr O and I have pulled together as a team, some days we don't speak and don't make a very good team, most days we are on the same page and when I am really struggling at home, and need him here, he is very good at prioritising and making an effort to get home to me. Living here isn't like living in the real world. Everyone has a helper. They are mostly Filipino, and they earn on average about £500 a month. You may, or may not, understand why people have helpers.. unless you have lived here with an infant and struggled with the public transport, the ridiculously tiny buggy unfriendly food shops, the god awful steps everywhere, and a husband who works from 8am to 10pm most nights, then you cannot possibly understand. We had a helper when I was pregnant with Lily due to my problematic pregnancy (the bleeding and sickness etc). She did my food shopping and prepared dinners for us and William, when I had my head down the toilet suffering with morning sickness, or when I was on bed rest with a threatened miscarriage. She cleaned the flat and did our ironing, it was wonderful! It meant I could focus on not losing the baby, and could spend as much time being a good Mum to William. It also meant that should I have to rush to hospital, we would have someone here to rely on to babysit William, which was of the utmost importance as obviously we have no family to call upon for help, and Williams safety was priority.
Once Lily was born we decided she was no longer needed, as it was costing us valuable pennies (i actually think we had the highest paid helper in Discovery Bay) and we don't have much money, and with a new baby we need every penny.
And life did become very challenging indeed. A husband that works long hours, living in an apartment block that isn't in a good location for getting to the shops, trying to be a good wife and getting dinner on the table, and learning to be a Mummy to a 18 month old and a new baby sort of knocked me for six and I became miserable and home sick.
I loathe our tiny apartment, I miss all my belongings and clothes in the UK, I regret not shipping everything over with us when we moved, I miss my family and friends, I miss having a car and the convenience of living in the UK with two babies. I miss the social aspect of home, i miss the support of my sister and my Mum in law, I hate the Hong Kong air, I loathe the hours my husband works, I miss earning my own money, and being able to spend it as I wish, I hate how expensive it is to live here, I miss my independence, I miss the quality of life we had.
I am lucky to have a WONDERFUL support network of friends around me, they are amazing people, and if it weren't for them I truly would be rather depressed and lonely. They really have kept me going. They're the only reason I haven't jumped on a plane to escape.
I don't for one second believe life will drasticallly change if we return to the UK. I will still be a Mummy of two under two, we will still struggle to make ends meet to remain debt free, and Mr O will still work hard for his money. But I can work, I can do my Make Up, and train in other areas of beauty, and we will have family and friends around us, we will be in our own home again and have the luxury of a dish washer! Oh how I miss a dishwasher! Doing the dishes with William round my ankles and Lily in the sling is challenging.
Our marriage has been tested in the sense that we are both sleep deprived, this is mostly because of William. He is a wonderful and happy little boy but the closer he gets to two years old, and the more teeth he has come through, the less he sleeps at night, the more he wakes up, and the tantrums.. my god the tantrums. Lily is a doddle to care for in comparison. If in doubt, the boob comes out, and she is settled. William is at a complex age, and we feel out of our depth at times. We feel so isolated here. But we make do, and mend.
The more he starts to talk, the less frustrated he becomes so I feel we have turned a corner with him. I feel we have our happy loving little boy back, who understands us and us him.
I have turned a corner too. I have given in and succumbed to trying to be the woman I was, and have given in to being the Mum of two. Yes I cut my own hair and it needs a good colouring, yes I mend my clothes when they get holes in (because getting off the island to go shopping at the moment is impossible with a baby that nurses every 2 hours) i just have to be creative with my outfits and I don't care that I wear the same pair of shoes day in day out. I am setting new boundaries for William in order for a quiet life, and yes I breast feed Lily to sleep and have to wear her in the sling all day long so she can sleep without William waking her up, I might have bad parenting habits, but I make do, and mend. And this works for me.
My life has become a blur of extremes. Extreme tiredness, extreme happiness, extreme isolation, extreme suffocation. I'm up and down like a yo-yo and have avoided blogging about what is relevant to my life at the moment because I fear all I will sound is negative, worn out, and ungrateful. I am worn out, negative at times but I am far from ungrateful. As hard as life can be with two under two, I am so blessed to have such healthy babies, I am so blessed to have babies full stop.
Mr O and I have pulled together as a team, some days we don't speak and don't make a very good team, most days we are on the same page and when I am really struggling at home, and need him here, he is very good at prioritising and making an effort to get home to me. Living here isn't like living in the real world. Everyone has a helper. They are mostly Filipino, and they earn on average about £500 a month. You may, or may not, understand why people have helpers.. unless you have lived here with an infant and struggled with the public transport, the ridiculously tiny buggy unfriendly food shops, the god awful steps everywhere, and a husband who works from 8am to 10pm most nights, then you cannot possibly understand. We had a helper when I was pregnant with Lily due to my problematic pregnancy (the bleeding and sickness etc). She did my food shopping and prepared dinners for us and William, when I had my head down the toilet suffering with morning sickness, or when I was on bed rest with a threatened miscarriage. She cleaned the flat and did our ironing, it was wonderful! It meant I could focus on not losing the baby, and could spend as much time being a good Mum to William. It also meant that should I have to rush to hospital, we would have someone here to rely on to babysit William, which was of the utmost importance as obviously we have no family to call upon for help, and Williams safety was priority.
Once Lily was born we decided she was no longer needed, as it was costing us valuable pennies (i actually think we had the highest paid helper in Discovery Bay) and we don't have much money, and with a new baby we need every penny.
And life did become very challenging indeed. A husband that works long hours, living in an apartment block that isn't in a good location for getting to the shops, trying to be a good wife and getting dinner on the table, and learning to be a Mummy to a 18 month old and a new baby sort of knocked me for six and I became miserable and home sick.
I loathe our tiny apartment, I miss all my belongings and clothes in the UK, I regret not shipping everything over with us when we moved, I miss my family and friends, I miss having a car and the convenience of living in the UK with two babies. I miss the social aspect of home, i miss the support of my sister and my Mum in law, I hate the Hong Kong air, I loathe the hours my husband works, I miss earning my own money, and being able to spend it as I wish, I hate how expensive it is to live here, I miss my independence, I miss the quality of life we had.
I am lucky to have a WONDERFUL support network of friends around me, they are amazing people, and if it weren't for them I truly would be rather depressed and lonely. They really have kept me going. They're the only reason I haven't jumped on a plane to escape.
I don't for one second believe life will drasticallly change if we return to the UK. I will still be a Mummy of two under two, we will still struggle to make ends meet to remain debt free, and Mr O will still work hard for his money. But I can work, I can do my Make Up, and train in other areas of beauty, and we will have family and friends around us, we will be in our own home again and have the luxury of a dish washer! Oh how I miss a dishwasher! Doing the dishes with William round my ankles and Lily in the sling is challenging.
Our marriage has been tested in the sense that we are both sleep deprived, this is mostly because of William. He is a wonderful and happy little boy but the closer he gets to two years old, and the more teeth he has come through, the less he sleeps at night, the more he wakes up, and the tantrums.. my god the tantrums. Lily is a doddle to care for in comparison. If in doubt, the boob comes out, and she is settled. William is at a complex age, and we feel out of our depth at times. We feel so isolated here. But we make do, and mend.
The more he starts to talk, the less frustrated he becomes so I feel we have turned a corner with him. I feel we have our happy loving little boy back, who understands us and us him.
I have turned a corner too. I have given in and succumbed to trying to be the woman I was, and have given in to being the Mum of two. Yes I cut my own hair and it needs a good colouring, yes I mend my clothes when they get holes in (because getting off the island to go shopping at the moment is impossible with a baby that nurses every 2 hours) i just have to be creative with my outfits and I don't care that I wear the same pair of shoes day in day out. I am setting new boundaries for William in order for a quiet life, and yes I breast feed Lily to sleep and have to wear her in the sling all day long so she can sleep without William waking her up, I might have bad parenting habits, but I make do, and mend. And this works for me.
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