Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go

Whoopdedoo, today is my first day at work for 18 whole days and I just know it’s going to be horrid.

It's all my own undoing though: my employer closed for Christmas/New Year and I booked off the preceding week, giving Peanut and I the longest stretch of time together since I was on maternity leave over 3 years ago.

Ordinarily our daily grind goes something like this, just as it will this morning:

5:30 husband and I crawl out of bed though we’re usually too comatose for proper conversation at this hour.
6:15 husband leaves for work.
6:45 wake up Peanut.
6:45-7:45 convince Peanut she really does want to eat breakfast/get dressed so we’re not late, interspersed with making myself look halfway decent.
8:00 drive to nursery [we should really leave at 7:50 but we’re usually running a bit late].
8:15 drop Peanut at nursery to start her 10-hour stint.
8:30 wait for the silly tube train to take me into central London - this method of transport has a nasty habit of sucking 15 minutes out of my day, making me later than my childcare run already does.
9:30 arrive at work, usually half an hour after my official start time, hoping after 2 and a half years of the same tardiness I’ll continue to get away with it.

If I’m picking up Peanut, which I do at least two out of four days, I leave the office by 17:00. More often than not I’m running to the station in order to make it to the nursery by closing at 18:00. Peanut is usually one of the last to be collected: first in, last out. Sometimes it breaks my heart.

Contractually I should finish at 17:30 so all in all I don’t really deliver on my hours; I like to think I make it up by working late into the evening on days when I don’t have to rush off though. On those days I don’t make it home before Peanut’s bedtime so I never quite manage to make everyone happy, including myself.

Who was it that said you could have it all? As if I want it all anyway, I’d settle for just the bit I want right now.