Mum’s the word

Apparently, I’m mum now, not mummy. Kit announced this last week. I’m a bit sad about it. Feels like the end of an era – he’s not a little boy any more. In fact, he’s off now with a school friend, down the park, with his mobile phone and a time to be back. 8 going on 15. (Having said that though, he did still have a proper toddler tantrum this morning, at 0715, when we tried to get him ready for sailing club. Screaming and stamping his feet and throwing stuff. Of course when we got there he had a great time. So, he might not be as grown up as he thinks he is. I was reminded of this the other day too, when we went for a walk up Mt Vic. I assumed (never a good start to a story) that the boys had raced ahead to get to the playground they’d been nagging me to go to all morning. They assumed (there’s that word again) that I somehow knew they had found a nature trail of native birds to follow. When I got to the playground they weren’t there. I didn’t panic, they’re not 3 years old any more and it wasn’t a packed museum in the Easter holidays (I’m still scarred from that experience, can you tell?), but I wasn’t sure at all how I was going to find them again. To cut a long story short (literally – I’ve just typed out a whole other paragraph and decided it was way too detailed and boring) some lovely mountain biking teenagers had found a distraught Roo at the top of the hill and called me using the number on the dog tag on his necklace. He was very glad to see me when I hiked up the hill (for the third time!) to retrieve him. After I found him, I called Charlie, obviously, to tell him it was all ok and I’d got Roo. To which Charlie said ‘what do you mean, you’ve got him?’ I had assumed (there is a theme here, isn’t there) that it was only Charlie’s number on the dog tag and the teenagers had called him first to get my number. But they hadn’t. They’d called me direct, and I actually had no need to confess my lack of parenting. It was always the same when I lost the dogs on Arthur’s Seat. I’d call them and look for them for ages and ages and ages. But it was only after I’d called Charlie to admit that I’d lost them, and heard him roll his eyes on the end of the phone, that they’d turn up. Every. Single. Time. Well, apart from that time that I lost Tilly in the dark and the rain with two small children up the hill in December, and Charlie and I searched for hours with torches until someone caught her and called us. Apart from that time.)

Right, I am well and truly off topic (is there a topic?). But sticking with stories about dogs, Hamish has been a delight this past month. He’s kept Charlie company while he’s been working on his (Charlie’s, not Hamish’s) pilates app at home, and he’s been down to BikeSpace to look cute in the corner while Charlie, the ‘friendly expert’, has been helping people fix their bicycles. (This was a job that Charlie got accidentally – he thought he was offering to volunteer, but it turns out they will pay him for it. So he gets to sit in a deck chair drinking chai with his schnoodle, waiting for people to bring him their wobbly front wheels, dodgy brakes or rusty suspensions. Then he helps them diagnose the problem, tells them what parts they need, and helps them put it all back together properly. Apparently some of the problems people bring in are literally life threatening. Scary biscuits.) The one small snag with Hamish is that, despite being pint sized and as aggressive as a crocheted teddy bear, he’s not allowed on buses without being ‘fully enclosed’. He will quite happily sit in a shopping bag, or Charlie’s backpack (which is how they get about on a scooter), but because his terrifying jaws and bountiful moustache are left exposed, he’s not allowed on buses. So, we have had to discover the joys of Uber Pet and the city car pool instead. (I now have an NZ driving licence! My UK licence expires in July, and try as I might I cannot get it renewed while I’m out of the country. Bonkers, but true. Computer, chat bots, emails and phone calls, all say NO.)

My work has turned out to be as awesome as I hoped it would be. I started with two other British midwives (it’s hard to find a kiwi accent in the hospital) and we had a fantastic orientation. I’ve not yet met a single person who hasn’t been welcoming and helpful and there is such a flat hierarchy, I don’t feel intimidated at all to ask questions. I actively look forward to my shifts! The culture here is quite different – it’s more focused on using your own clinical judgement, rather than doggedly following a policy, which is refreshing. Midwives wear their own clothes on the ante/postnatal wards (and no more masks!) to emphasise that birth is a normal event, rather than medicalise it. Women have single rooms, and whanau are encouraged to visit and stay over whenever they want. And the roster seems much more accommodating of work life balance – I’ve asked not to work weekends, and that has, so far, pretty much been honoured. I felt guilty asking, but actually there are lots of new grads who’d rather have the extra money from working weekends, so it all comes out in the wash – there’s a shift that suits everyone. In fact, they have a great system of mixed 8 and 12 hour shifts here – I thought it would be chaos, but actually there’s far more continuity, because the whole shift doesn’t change at the same time, and the staff are happier working in a way that suits them. The only caveat to all this good news is that I only have three more shifts on the wards. The week after next I’m rotating to birthing suite for 6 months, so ask me again the week after next how it is! I haven’t been on labour ward for over 4 years, so it’ll be a bit of a shock to the system.

Roo and Kit have thrown themselves into extracurricular activities (payback for years of being smug as our friends have ferried their kids around from dance to cricket to fencing to judo to swimmign). We’re having a difference of opinion about whether they ought to learn to sail (they should), and whether ‘drama’ lessons are worthwhile or not (there’s not much acting going on, but Roo is definitely more confident). Roo isn’t keen on rugby (too violent) but (surprise, surprise) Kit is desperate to give it a go. But the coolest club of all, that we all agree on, is Band School! The advert in the school newsletter went something like: ‘Are you 8 or older and want to be in a band?’ Hell yes! The guy who organises it couldn’t talk to us when we called him as he was at WOMAD (total diary cock up that I didn’t see that coming or we would’ve been there too) but he’s going to get them in a band, mentored by older teenagers, to write their own songs and perform once a term. Kit wants to learn the bass (he’s only bringing one onto the boat if one of the guitars leaves though) and Roo wants to learn keyboards. They could be the next AC/DC, Van Halen or Oasis? (Ok, I’ll come clean, I googled them. The first brothers-in-bands that sprang to my mind were Bros, Spandau ballet and the Proclaimers).

I think that might be us all caught up. No big adventures recently – it’s all been about work, school, making friends, settling in. We’ve done a few small bush walks, been out for date-night dinners (I even found a place that just does cocktails and desserts!), and played lots of after school table tennis (who’d have thought that table tennis was THE thing at school? Roo has even spent some of his hard saved pocket money on a shiny new bat). We did have a road trip ‘over the hill’ with our lovely friend Eva, to see the Wairarapa – it’s so beautiful and has filled us full of enthusiasm for exploring more. So, we’re heading over to Picton and the Marlborough sounds for Easter for some long awaited buddy boating with Selkie (I have back up ferry and plane tickets in case the winds are not in our favour and we can’t sail back in time for work), and we will book some DOC huts (aka bothies in Scotland) for some more intrepid bush walks soon. Although I have to keep reminding myself, we’re heading towards winter, not summer…