Balancing books and a baby is HARD.
Like, really, really hard.
Today, I have been trying to –
- Finish a script
- Start learning said script
- Edit together a video when I don’t have half the materials I need for it
- Somehow turn a 5-page script into a 25 minute performance
- Put together a powerpoint presentation that won’t bore people to tears
- Think about how this performance won’t just be me talking at people (I still haven’t figured it out).
I have been contending with –
- A teething baby
- An undeniable feeling of cabin fever
- A poorly boyfriend
- A baby who doesn’t want to eat anything but flavoured rice cakes (weirdo).
- The same baby, who then decided to have a screaming fit so bad she nearly threw up and we thought she was really hurt, until it turned out she was having a tantrum because we wouldn’t let her tip her bottle upside down.
Yep, today we’ve encountered our first full-on screaming tantrum. For a baby everyone describes as ‘the happiest they’ve met’, this girl has a set of lungs on her. We couldn’t touch her, move the bottle away from her, sit her down, lie her down, anything, without her screeching at the top of her voice like we’d ripped her favourite toy in half.
As I said in earlier posts, we’ve been told we’re making it look easy. Anyone who believes that would’ve eaten their words if they’d seen us earlier, trying to wrestle a dripping bottle of milk off a screaming toddler-in-a-baby’s-body who bites (oh yeah, did we mention she bites now? Fucking OUCH), driving ourselves crazy trying to figure out what was wrong with her (the Calpol may have had an effect on her, considering how quickly she KO’d once she was in her sleeping bag and in the cot – now lowered, after she started threatening to climb over the rails). We were not making that shit look easy.
I sat down tonight and compiled a list of everything I have to do in the next week and a half to prepare for my dissertation. I even deactivated my Facebook to try and focus (it didn’t work very well, and I felt lonely and re-activated it so now I’ll get even less done). Every time I think about the work, my brain goes into a kind of panic mode and switches off. I haven’t even left it late!! Life has conspired against me over the last few weeks with a faulty whatever-the-hell-in-my-body-is-faulty, a baby who has suddenly discovered the ability to a) grow teeth and b) tantrum when things don’t go her way, and some kind of horrible virus currently working its way around the house.
For the first time (in foreverrrrr…. sorry), I really doubt I’ll finish uni on time with my friends – and if I do, I highly doubt it’ll be with the sort of classification I need (2:1, for reference).
Meep.
On the bright side… look how beautiful my girl is. And she LOVES bubbles! (Ignore my tired, stressed face…)
The Speed Bump 