Ahhhh bliss!

I am writing this post in an empty house! I have a coffee, some biscuits and I'm listening to my friend Sarah talk about her wonderful business Archie's Boutique on Croydon radio.

Today is my first Wednesday morning with Noah at nursery. I have nearly cleaned the whole house, just the bathrooms to do after elevenses. I kept finding myself at the bottom of the stairs listI was halfway through the housework when I realised that not only will I have this precious time to do the housework, but also the house wont get in such a mess as two whole day a week there will be no one in the house! I can't stress how pleased I am we put Noah in nursery! Of course we haven't paid anything yet, so I may feel different when we are really scraping the barrel to get by!

Here's Noah posing for the obligatory 'first day at nursery' shot

I wonder how long I will go on enjoying it. Noah was really good on his first day, but he does have a tendency to be pretty rough with other kids. I may just come to find it completely embarrassing picking him up each week and hearing all the naughty things he has done!

A big family decision

Today we took the plunge and made a big decision!

Noah will be starting at a nursery as soon as possible.

I was dreading this kind of decision, I thought it would be hard to chose, hard to think of leaving him with strangers, that I would feel neglectful. I Don't! I feel such peace about it.

Just before Christmas one of our regular Noah minders decided she couldn't do it any more. It was such a blow, I had just committed to working extra hours at work so I couldn't take the day off and from all that we knew of the local nurseries the good ones had massive waiting lists. The only solution we could come to was Thomas requesting flexible working hours. It was accepted on a trial basis; he had Mondays off and worked 8-6 Tue-Fri. It was HORRENDOUS! Well still is, we're still doing it! Thomas is exhausted, we never see each other as there are things going on most evenings, so we eat and then go our separate ways. We had planned to get Noah into a pre-school in the summer when he was 2 so we were going to look around this month and get his name down somewhere. We thought maybe we could cope with 6 months of this!

Fortunately we found that our top choice could actually take Noah straight away on our chosen days. It's the one at the hospital where Thomas works, so it's so convenient. Literally the biggest blessing going!

So he's going to go all day Monday and Friday whilst I am at work, but also he's going to go on a Wednesday morning. I am hoping I will be able to use this time to get the housework done, also to run chores, get my hair done or just read my book! Whatever is most needed to keep our sanity! At the moment the house is complete chaos, we just never have the time/energy to get anything done. I know I can hear you asking, 'so why are you sitting around writing a blog post?' Well I'm eating my lunch as well, it's the only thing on my to do list that wont give me indigestion! I also like the fact that I wont be worry about trying to get these things done in my time with Noah, and he can have my full attention.

It's going to be money we don't really have, but we are going to utilise the childcare vouchers to make some savings. I think the monetary sacrifice will be worth it, for a happier more relaxed family.

2013 is already looking better than last year.

Bx