Saturday, 22 February 2014: Three Hundred and Twenty Nine Days Old.

Time has become a very valuable commodity lately.

I’ve always prided myself on my time management and organisation skills but I’ve started to notice I’m becoming less and less productive the older Ayla gets.

It’s probably a combination of trying to do too many things at once – also known as “burning the candle at both ends” – and for the first time since becoming a mum I actually feel stressed!

I know it’s a sign to slow down and drop a few of the balls I’ve been juggling but knowing this is also adding to the pressure!

With my return to work looming in the all too near future I am trying to cram as much fun, activity and Ayla-time into my day as much as possible so the hours between 7am and 9pm have recently resembled a game of chess.

The planner in me is trying my best to maximise the time I have available, and I’ve been starting each day with not just a Plan A and a Plan B, but also Plan’s C, D, E and sometimes F.

Which “Plan” get implemented is dependant on so many factors, such as nap times, the weather, paper work and unforseen admin, and I find myself swapping and changing as the day goes on.

For example, today Plan A involved focusing any spare time I had on loading rubbish and green waste into the ute… Alas, I forgot to ask Hubby if we could swap cars when he went to work at 4am.

So I swapped to Plan B, which meant getting up and ready to go out before Ayla woke up so that we could get the grocery shopping done before her morning nap… Alas, Ayla decided to wake up an hour earlier than usual which meant that by the time I’d prepared breakfast, fed her, washed her and clothed her she was almost ready to sleep again.

Then on to Plan C, which delayed grocery shopping until after Ayla’s morning nap and freed me up to get stuck into some gardening (instead of unpacking and sorting shopping, cleaning the house and doing some washing) while Ayla enjoyed her usual two hour sleep… Alas, only fifty minutes into gardening, when I was covered in dirt, dripping in sweat and no where near finished, Ayla woke up.

So, it was back to Plan B… and so on until finally its bedtime and we recharge for tomorrow.