It’s only March and 2017 has already thrown so many challenges my way. Literally every aspect of my life has changed or is about to.
Over the last couple of months, Luna has gone from being a little teeny baby who can just about sit up for 10 seconds before wobbling over, to an almost-toddler who can pull herself up on the furniture, crawl around the room, take pictures on my phone (seriously don’t know how she worked that one out) and even babble the odd ‘mumumum’ ‘rarara’ and ‘bababa’.
She has this wonderful ability to grab the attention of an entire room and have everyone laughing within seconds. And she knows she is doing it. She looks people individually in the eye whilst smiling and laughing at them, and then when they laugh back, she smiles and laughs even more.
All these developmental changes were amazing, but they made me sad. I was missing so much of her growing up and if I’m honest, I was really struggling being back at work. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I was working in Bristol, meaning I had to drive half an hour to Cardiff to drop Luna off, then ALL the way to Bristol, then all the way back to pick Luna up, and back home. Dave’s mum had made it loads easier by meeting me at my house in the evening, but the traffic is always so unpredictable and I never knew what time I would make it home.
Add to the equation that Luna is still 90% breastfed and isn’t really up for trying food properly yet, and I was becoming SUPER stressed out. I was spending my lunch times expressing milk in the toilets, expressing milk in the car at 7am on the way to dropping Luna off (using on of the things that holds the pump in place handsfree), and having mini mental breakdowns when I couldnt make enough milk for the day. I know the obvious answer is to supplement with formula milk but I’m so stubborn and once I get an idea in my head, I HAVE to stick to it, even if it becomes ridiculously stressful.
SO…
I mentioned to Dave I was thinking about handing my notice in and starting my own little business. At the time, we were both thinking it would be something to aim towards for the end of the year. However, that wee, I found myself in the Cardiff office on my own, with a pile of work on my desk and no motivation to get any of it done. Usually, I’m really committed to everything I do and need to finish everything to perfection, but that day I was staring at my work thinking “I don’t care about any of this”, – and that wasn’t me. So I wrote out my notice using a pen and paper, to see how it would feel. And the next week, after a teary conversation with my boss, it was done.
After three amazing years at SBW Advertising, I’m now going on to work as a freelance digital marketing consultant, and hopefully I can soon build this into my own little Digital Marketing agency.
Apparently, quitting my job out of nowhere, raising a small baby, and trying to launch a business isn’t stressful enough for me, so Dave and I decided to move house! We aren’t good at timing things. We bought our little kitten a couple of weeks after we first moved into our house before we even had carpets or any furniture, we had a baby at the same time as Dave’s final Chartered Accountancy exams (Dave was literally on the hospital bed as I was in labour), and now we both have new jobs, a mini business, a crazy baby and a new house to decorate.
To go with my new life, I’m planning a new hair style, a new cruelty-free diet and lifestyle and a large glass of champagne!