What happens when you do the washing up....

Thanks to not doing any work on my thesis yesterday, I had the energy to do the washing up last night before going to bed, leaving a spotless and shiny kitchen to wake up to.  This doesn't happen often but has important psychological repercussions when it does.  So this morning, thanks to the subtle chemical changes that had already taken place in my brain as a direct result of these actions, I woke up BEFORE anyone else in the house. I am usually dragged cursing and shuffling from my bed with the reluctance of a cat being placed before a fully equipped wet room.  Not today.  Not after I did the washing up last night.  Today I rose with the dawn, and MEDITATED before sipping on hot water with lemon and enjoying a light, nausea beating breakfast filled with health giving properties of wonder and goodness.  When my family awoke, I greeted them with smiles and food that didn't come out of a packet.  Yes.  I was on top of my game.  And thanks to an inset day at the nursery, there was no need to sully the waters of my calm with, cough, thesis work.  I had childcare business to take care of.  Yes, I've tried in the past to 'slip a bit of writing in', but after managing a sentence in about 6 hours, the realisation dawns that by trying to be all things at all times, you end up being pretty shabby at all things.  Besides, I did the washing up last night, and today was my day to enjoy parenting for a change.  So we did toddler football, visited the library, had a lunch with nutritional value.  Yes, there was the mid afternoon melt down in Sports World.  When pregnancy tiredness mixed with a hefty dose of nausea hit me like a ton of bricks and I had to have a lie down on the dirty trainer changing couches upstairs while the co- parent tried to argue the benefits of sensible, waterproof boots over cheap light-up-when-you-walk Peppa Pig shoes with a furious three old who then tried to bite his leg.  But that's pocket change in the greater scheme of things.  It was a great day!  The sun shone!  And I did the washing up last night!

It's Just Another Manic Monday.....

.....or it would've been if I'd got out of bed for most of it as opposed to only the parts of the day in which I had no choice but to get out of bed, and grudgingly at that.

Alarm clock goes off at 7.30.  First Little Monkey has been in bed with me and the Co-Parent (an academic term for 'father' or 'sperm donor'.  You choose depending on level of help/support offered on any given day) since 5.30am ready and waiting to have breakfast and watch children's TV (I know, TV first thing in the morning.  Very un-academic).  I plead morning sickness and the co-parent gets up with the little chimp and hauls them upstairs.  Definitely a 'Father' morning.  An hour later a small pair of hands shakes me awake from lucid dreams driven by the instructions issued by the still-playing alarm clock radio. "I need breakfast".  Co-parent, now 'Sperm Donor', has fallen asleep in front of CBeebies.

Do the nursery drop off.  It is a beautiful crisp Autumn morning.  This is my daily excercise!  I say, feeling smug and in control.  As soon as I get home I'll tackle the abomination that is my desk and get started on those thesis revisions!  Take deep breath of fresh air.  Stride forward confidently.

Get home, ignore breakfast dishes, look at desk.  Eat more breakfast.  Small meals throughout the day control morning sickness, or 'all day sickness' which is its more accurate description.  Look at desk again.  Hit  by wave of extreme tiredness.  Fall asleep.  Wake up to use toilet.  Fall asleep again.  Wake up again to use toilet.  Thanks to hormonal changes in my Nature vs Culture battleground of a body I am a frequent visitor to the loo where I have stacked a pile of academic readings to make expedient use of this time.  Unfortunately I didn't remove the Argos catalogue or the 3 month old issue of Grazia so I'm more well versed in stale news about Cheryl and Ashley's divorce and Alesha off Strictly Come Dancing's jewellery range than I am with social theory.

I try working in bed with a pile of dry crackers on the side table to drive away the constant feeling of being about to throw up.  A bit like a hangover after a crazy all-nighter, except the fun of going out has been removed from the equation.  I open my thesis file and am hit with a wave of nausea.  Is it the hormonal changes or am I now officially allergic to my work?  Guilty feelings.  This is not going to happen.  I organise swimming classes and research future primary schools instead.  Co-parent does nursery pick up and heads off for night shift at work.  Now all I have to do is throw some noodles together for dinner (add frozen peas and it's a healthy balanced meal), persuade my offspring that a bath after two days is a good idea and do the breakfast dishes.  As soon as I get out of bed.

Points of Clarification

This is not a blog about how to write a PhD.  If I knew how to do that I'd be done with mine and not writing this!  Rather, it's a collection of everyday observations and experiences about the highs and lows of combining motherhood, pregnancy and writing a PHD all at the same time.  I don't claim to be an authority or representative of either mothers, mothers-to-be or academics.  And on the academic front, this could just as well be titled, "How Not to Write a PHD (while having a baby)".  Or, "How to Write an Average to Mediocre PHD (while having a baby)".

My academic specialism is in the social sciences, and I've been at it for the best part of 6 years now (stretched inordinately thanks to bouts of extended maternity leave and the pesky interferences of Life into the pristine avenues of unfettered academic thinking).  I have a three and a half year old, another bun in the oven (9 weeks at the moment) and a semi-completed thesis manuscript that looks beautiful when bound, and has gone through a viva where the firm but fair examiners gave another 6 months to get some pretty serious revisions done.  Will I do it and get this thing in by the end of March?  Ready to put my feet up and watch day time television in preparation for Birth Part 2 in June?  This blog will chart that journey and whether I triumphantly hand in and pass with flying colours, endlessly extend till the official 18 month period is up (adding the extra dimension of thesis guilt and newborn care!) or give the whole damn thing up.

There are the heroines of combining academia and motherhood.  The tales of women who give birth whilst out in the far flung field and give a conference paper three days later with the baby in a basket beside them.  I thought of them as I shuffled to the toilet two weeks after having my first and struggled to remember to brush my teeth.  Has it been 5 days?  Really? Oh.

So this is a blog about How to (maybe not) Write a PHD (while having a baby) and also how to slowly work your way back to the point where you remember to brush your teeth again.  I rarely forget these days.  A profound achievement.