One night away, three babysitters

On Monday morning I caught the red-eye flight to Melbourne. This meant waking up at 4.20am to be at the airport for 5.30am. I had to be there for two days of work so it wasn’t a trip I could take JJ on.

I feel a bit resentful that I had to organise childcare for work when I could be using it for my social life – I feel I’ve only so many babysitting brownie points.

Because I had to leave so early on Monday morning JJ stayed at my sister’s on Sunday night. For some reason I can’t fathom she didn’t want to stay at my place and be woken up so early.

Unfortunately I felt quite seedy on Sunday morning due to some over-indulgence on Saturday evening, but came good by Sunday afternoon. Fortunately this allowed me to be super organised for Monday morning. I had myself packed for my one night and two days away and I had JJ organised for one night away and his Monday lunch packed and a list written and some things packed for his Tuesday lunch.

A good friend picked JJ up from school on Monday afternoon and brought him home, gave him dinner etc and got him ready for school on Tuesday morning.

As neither my sister or my good friend could pick him up from school on Tuesday I organised another friend to pick JJ up from school on Tuesday until I got home later that evening.

I didn’t sleep very well on Monday night because I had to turn the room’s air conditioner on and it was loud and I don’t think it worked very well as the room was quite stuffy. I don’t like sleeping in a stuffy room. I would wake up, roll over and then go back to sleep.

Between meetings over the two days my colleague and I managed to go shopping. She’s into shopping even more than I am and did very well. I did quite well too. We managed a quick visit to the Spencer Street DFO late Monday afternoon and between meetings on Tuesday we were on Clarendon Street in South Melbourne. I bought a ring, a scarf, a top, a worry doll for my son and a little cloth handbag.

I felt like a bit of an idiot after I’d asked the taxi driver what the building below was as it looks so obvious from here. This photo was taken a block away from Bridge Road in Richmond but unfortunately didn’t have time to go shopping there.

I think overall the trip was fruitful and I spent much of today going through my emails from the last couple of days and typing up notes I took from people we visited. I also went into work late.