ROCKING ON THE COUCH LIKE A CRAZY PERSON

'I half expected to turn up and find you sitting on the couch in your dressing gown, rocking back and forth talking to myself.'


This is what my friend said to me yesterday when she turned up to see if I...well, to see if I was sitting on the couch in my dressing gown and rocking back and forth talking to myself I suppose.

Not gonna lie, this opening a restaurant gig is fairly intense. Neither G nor I are getting much sleep at the mo', but I have to admit that's also because I'm being selfish. I'm about to start working 5 nights and both days of the weekend.
That is an awful lot of time away from my little girl, and because i'm going to battle with that so terribly, I'm clambering for as much time as possible with her now.

I honestly don't know how I'm going to cope not putting her to bed 5 nights of the week.
I try to remember that that also means 5 nights where I don't have to scrub the highchair, read the same lame arse book and fight about how many times she needs to clean her teeth.
Nah, I'll even miss that.

But I'm also very excited to see my husband's dream come true. 

And last time I checked, the trust fund stood rather empty, so working for a crust is really the only way to go. Unless I help a rich old lady across the road and she leaves me her millions in her will. I have fantasised about that happening for a long time now, but no luck yet.

It's a really tough battle to fight I'm finding. I'm excited to interact with new and interesting people. To get back into the pace of restaurant life, where I finish each night with a warm glass of red and a specially cooked meal from the kitchen...ok the reality is going to be a little different from when I worked in restaurants in LA and NYC. This time, i'll be dashing home to relieve my parents who are our fabulous (and affordable) q-sitters.

Which brings me back to Q. And just how much I'm going to miss my little girl and her zest for life. What about all those adventures she's going to have without me...
Is motherhood just one big lesson in letting go?

That's the part that will have me rocking on the couch...

But since I wasn't in my dressing gown and was in fact dressed when my friend turned up, we had a lovely morning nattering away like two little stay-at-home-mums. She's definitely a friend I'd see more often if we lived closer.
But she lives on the fancy North Shore and last time Q and I visited another friend of ours over there, Q screamed the entire 45 minute journey.
It got so bad I thought my ears were starting to bleed and I seriously considered putting the hazards on, getting out of the car, and leaving Q to it, right in the middle of the Pacific Highway.

Surely some tan booted, slim jeaned, Country Road wearing mother would have picked her up and enrolled her in Montessori School quick smart.

So no, I don't see my friend as often as I'd like and it was terribly nice of her to endure the dreaded Pacific Highway and come my way...bringing dinner with her.

That's right. Despite being the mother of two small children, and step-mum to two teenage boys which would surely be enough to do anyone in, she brings me (mother of one) a home-cooked meal.

My finger is protecting the identity of her son, because that small meal was actually intended for her son.
Somewhere on the north shore a little boy is going hungry tonight...

I'd always thought this particular friend and I were aligned in our parenting and housekeeping sensibilities, but here I find things are not as they seem.
She labels her frozen meals.
I just whack 'em in the freezer and it's part of the fun as the day progresses, to watch a meal defrost and discover it is not bolognese but rather the duck fat leftover from G's last menu test.

And she puts the date on them too.
That is proper Martha Stewart housekeeping right there.

And I love how she thought the meal on the left would serve two.
Not a chance.
Q and I downed both containers before you could say microwave.

What she did was really, really nice.
So now I owe her.
Next time I'll have to be the one to visit her...