Action Man often says "Mummy help", "Mummy fix it", "Mummy kiss it better" when something is wrong, something won't work, or he has hurt himself.

I love this. I love being the answer to all problems, and I love being though to be able to fix everything and make everything better.

I know there will come a time when Mummy can't fix it, can't do it, or can't make it better. That makes me sad.

A night away

On Saturday night Hubby and I went to our nanny's wedding. It was a lovely night - a Christian wedding, and as she and her husband are Indonesian it had quite a different cultural element too. Grandma and Gaga (Action Man's name for my dad which has now stuck and is used by the whole family!) came down and stayed for the night to babysit and we stayed at a hotel for the night. It was lovely. Not that we didn't miss the Boys and weren't anxious to get home to them on Sunday morning, but, I am a big believer in quiet and alone time for parents contributing to the life of our relationship and the stability of our family. We don't get the option to go out alone that much as we have no family in Sydney (apart from my sister who has her own little one!) so it is a real treat when we get it. Feeling very lucky and energised by my little time away.

What am I worth???

Our nanny is currently on holidays - she is getting married on Saturday so has had this week off and will be away for the next 2 weeks. She looks after the boys usually on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, which are my work days, so for the time that she is away we are making alternative arrangements - actually, our 'arrangements' would be more accurately described as 'flying by the seat of our pants' and hoping that with a combination of Hubby and I taking days off here and there, and my Dad stepping in, we will get through the time ok.

Just on the nanny - she is wonderful, she loves our boys so much, and is a Christian which is great. I consider myself very lucky to have the nanny option rather than putting the Boys in childcare. When I was heading back to work when Action Man was 9 months old I couldn't bring myself to do the childcare thing so investigated nannies. Yes, it is more expensive, but the benefits the Boys get in one on one (or one on two) care in their own home with someone who has bonded with them, and the benefits we get from having a generally more organised life, and keeping the boys in their routine rather than having to get them out of the house early and home late for child care drop off and pick up, are definitely worth it. To be honest, I do have moments of jealousy - but they are far outweighed by the happiness I have at seeing the Boys happy and well cared for, and how good it is to see them developing bonds and relationships with people outside immediate family that they can trust.

Anyway, back to the three weeks that we are nanny-less. This week, Hubby has taken the Tuesday and Thursday shift, and my Dad is stepping in for Friday.

By all accounts - a wonderful day was had by all on Tuesday - the boys had their proper sleeps (more incidentally than they had yesterday which was a mummy day!), there were visits to the park and the shops, and Hubby even managed to lay our new turf in the backyard while they were asleep.

Hubby was however, to use his words "hammered" at the end of the day, and expressed his view that "there's nothing like two under two". I was sympathetic - I know this to be true! - and quite touched when he then commented that my approach of getting them into a manageable routine made it a lot easier for him to manage the day.

In later discussion, I was telling him about a meeting I had had that day with a financial adviser who represents the insurance company who manages the life insurance for my firm - as a partner, I am covered by the firm for a certain level of cover. I was telling Hubby that the amount of death cover had gone up since we last checked, and flippantly remarked that I was now worth more to him dead than alive.

He responded in all seriousness "No way, you are worth far more to me alive than dead - there's no way I could do what I did today all the time".

High praise and appreciation indeed.

Moments to remember from our weekend

Some lovely moments from a lovely weekend -

- being presented with a gift by Hubby and the Boys at 5.30am Saturday (wake up time in our house at the moment!) - it was a bottle of my favourite perfume which I bought especially for our wedding and have worn ever since. I lost my previous bottle by leaving it in the caravan we were staying in in country NSW when Hubby's father passed away in June, and have not got around to replacing it - I don't get to the shops often with two under two's in tow! It was a very special, unexpected and thoughtful gift.

- taking the Boys to the park yesterday and smelling the scents of Spring in the air - jasmine and wisteria etc - beautiful. Such a reminder of the beauty of Creation and how important it is to stop and notice once in a while.

- taking a nap while the Boys had their sleep yesterday - instead of tackling the monstrous pile of ironing and washing, the baking I had intended to do, cleaning the bathroom or doing the work I had brought home with me. It was bliss!

- watching Action Man play with our fruit bowl - it is his current obsession - taking the fruit out of the bowl and naming and counting each type with such pride and excitement. Today, when the bowl was empty he stood in it, announced that it was his 'shower' and proceeded to turn on the taps and shampoo his hair. How wonderful is the imagination of children - we see a fruit bowl, he sees a shower ....

- and finally, taking the Boys out for noodles for dinner and watching Flipper have a go at his first flat noodle.

A great weekend all in all, and full of moments to remember.

Bring on the week - I'm ready for it!

Just thinking today also about my first post, the name of this blog and the whole "Yummy Mummy" concept. My use of it and reference to it is by no means an endorsement of the concept - it is more a tongue in cheek reference than anything else (and I was struggling for a blog name - I'm not the most creative person at the best of times!).

But, I was thinking about it, and thinking that my boys and my husband love me just the way I am - the only thing which would really benefit me and them for me to change would be the fitness thing - if I was fitter then I would more than likely be less tired and more energetic.

Also being so grateful that I know that God loves me just the way I am - and as I struggle to be more like Jesus. Doesn't that mean more than anything - and isn't it often so easy to forget?

Re: yesterday's post - I think I might have nailed it. Not the working mum dilemma - surely that would be akin to brokering world peace! - but I have put my finger on just why my guilt quotient has increased in the last few weeks.

It's the choice thing. As I said in my previous post, I went back to work between the boys through a sense of obligation - mainly to the firm and to my family from a financial point of view. I didn't really enjoy it, I didn't really set the world on fire during that time, and I definitely wasn't looking forward to going back again this time. I didn't enjoy it again for the first couple of months, but in the last month I have moved offices, and in the process moved away from a difficult person I had worked with for some time, I have started afresh, have new clients, new staff and a new attitude. I enjoy work again - I haven't come full circle, in that I am not as career focussed as I once was, and I think I never will be again - but it is a marked change in my post-children attitude to work.

And that is the clincher - the choice thing. When I went back before I felt that it wasn't really a choice. I felt that I had to - I know, I know, everything is a choice, but I felt a little cornered back then. Now, it occurs to me that even if I had a choice not to work, I would - and that's where the guilt increases - I would choose to be away from my boys to go to work. Does that make me a bad mother????

Am feeling funny tonight. Am fresh from a lovely sunny day spent with my boys - we played, met up with friends at the playground, did a little grocery shopping, had a visit from Grandma and Grandad, and Aunty and cousin (3 months younger than Action Man), and while they slept I stewed and pureed 4.5 kilos of fruit for Flipper's meals for the next little while, and hung out and sorted washing ( I also read my book for about half an hour!). Lovely.

They are now in bed and I find myself in front of my computer, doing .... work. And not really resenting it, but feeling quite tired. Which brings me to my funny feeling.

Its about the working mum thing. This has changed for me quite dramatically quite recently and I'm still getting my head around it. Pre Hubby (we married in 2002) - I was the ultimate career woman, I worked long hours, weekends and enjoyed it, felt fulfilled by it, and moved ahead because of it. Post marriage, I toned it down a bit - still worked hard, but worked smarter, spent more time at home and enjoyed the balance (most of the time). Post Action Man, I thought I would never want to work again, so enamoured was I with new motherhood, and then by the time I went back to work (mainly due to obligation as I am a partner with the firm) I was already pregnant with Flipper and very ill a lot of the time, so work was really an annoyance while I coped with a difficult pregnancy, a young baby, and waited for the next one.

Going back this time was a wrench initially - but now I am enjoying it. Enjoying the balance, looking forward to my days at work and my days at home (I work 3 days a week at the moment) and generally feeling good about it.

But I have the guilt thing, and I am feeling pressured to increase my days, and I miss my boys when I'm at work, but I know I would miss work if I didn't do it. Still getting my head around it.

My days are numbered ....

There was an interesting article in the 'Sunday Life' magazine in the Sun Herald this past weekend entitled "Mind the Gap" - it was about the 'ideal' gap between children, the pluses and minuses of larger or smaller gaps. This is a subject dear to my heart - having one of the smallest 'gaps' I know between my children so I read it with interest. It quoted some research done by an Australian group which found that mothers of children with a gap of less than 18 months between them tend to have a shorter life expectancy than those with a larger gap. Hmmmm. I take some comfort from the fact that the research was done on women born prior to 1941, however .....

I then read on the back page of the SMH yesterday morning that some research has been done and published in the latest edition of the Scientific American stating that sons reduce a mother's life span by an average of 34 weeks. Apparently the culprit is the testosterone (of course it is!) as it compromises the mother's immune system and makes her more prone to disease. There is also the fact(?) that sons are more costly to raise, draining more physical resources from their mothers and are less likely to stick around to help their mothers out in old age!

Not looking positive for me. However on discussing this with Hubby last night he comforted me with the fact that his grandmother was mother to 6 boys, quite closely spaced, and lived until she was 93!!!! No need to panic then!

I am a mummy - a relatively new one, so it is very much my defining role in life - who am I kidding, it probably always will be. I have two boys - Action Man (22 months) and Flipper (almost 9 months). Yes - they are 13 months apart, and yes, we fell for the "breastfeeding is a 98% effective contraceptive" - I know, I know - silly! As I said to the midwife discharging Flipper and I from hospital after his birth when she quoted the above statistic to us "Meet Mr 2%"! But anyway, I digress ..... I do that a lot these days.

I am a mummy - but not a particularly "yummy" one - who has the time and where do they find it?????? My eyebrows, legs etc are way overdue for a wax, my hair is overdue for a cut and colour, my underwear has all gone grey in the wash (who has the time or energy to separate????) I am a fairly significant number of kilos heavier than I was pre-Action Man (and I was never really a slim girl anyway) and my days of wearing a clean outfit, makeup and properly done hair - all at the same time - are a thing of the past.

But, would I change it? Never. My boys are my life - even though they have changed my life, and me, into someone I sometimes no longer recognise - but like better than who I was before they came along.

Why this blog? I'm not sure - I have read blogs of some of my friends and enjoy them. But, I find that I often tend to drift off into random thought a lot these days - a blogger friend calls it SCRADD - Small Child Related Attention Deficit Disorder - and I tend to agree. In these random wanderings I think things I would like to write down - if only to help me process them. Not sure whether anyone will read this blog - I can't imagine it being terribly interesting - but hope that I can enjoy posting to it.