Thursday diary

Day 1 -an exercise in recording a week in the life of mothering.

Theoretically, Thursdays are my day off, but the last few weeks L has been working non-stop. We're just coming to the end of a nightmare run - she's home this weekend after working for about three weeks straight. Weekends, too. Hard for her - she's hardly seen the babies - and I am really dropping the bundle on the domestic front. House a pigsty, washing piling up, dinner recipes getting more and more banal, babies dressed in the dregs and dribs found behind the wardrobe. Of course purple striped pants go with blue, green and orange striped T-shirts. After all, they're both clean and what more could you ask?

(hey! become a feminist lesbian! you too can subvert the dominant paradigm just like me!)

We spent the day at the State Library with the delightful Maddie and her toddler daughter Summer, as well as visiting friends from Adelaide. The State Library has a fabulous children's program, involving all of us adults sitting on cushions in a brightly decorated corner, singing 'Hickory Dickory Dock' and 'Incy Wincy Spider' and so on. Honestly, I never thought I'd see the day and it does not sit comfortably with my self-concept so let's not dwell on it. But still, there we all are, twinkling away 'like a diamond in the sky'.

The angel babies fell asleep at the same time over lunchtime, so I organised some stuff for my painstakingly slow documentary project. Yes, it's still proceeding, in the same way a glacier can be said to be proceeding. I should be doing more research right now. Then I need to write a press release for the local paper - 'local family left behind by inconsistencies between federal and state law' kind of thing.

Lovergirl gets back from interstate about 11pm tonight. You know, before we had children, I understood theoretically why the stay-at-home mother should get half of her husband's earnings if they split up, but now I really get it. I know - I mean, I don't know, but I assume - that it's difficult to do a doctorate while working part time to support a young family, but it's bloddy (I meant that) hard work supporting someone who's doing a doctorate and working part time (much of the 'part' in part time, of course, being in the evenings) when you've got a young family, too. I'm starting to really long for the end of the year (although occasionally L lets slip her concern that perhaps her thesis won't be finished by then, aargh). Not that I should complain and isn't it a privilege to be able to stay at home with the children etc etc...but sometimes I wish there wasn't quite so much 'at home' within the phrase, 'stay at home'.

Anyhoo, we makes our choices...