The Balancing Act

It has been a challenging month for me both at the homefront and at work. After spending long hours working to finish a very important tender, I got the flu bug and was seriously down for a week. I honestly can't remember being this sick. Just barely recovering, my daughter got the dreaded chickenpox which meant that hubby and I had to arrange our schedules or make arrangements with family and friends to take care of our little bundle. I was just down with guilt one time when I could not stay at home to be with my daughter because of an important deadline.

During times like this, the realities of having a full time job and managing a household really hits me. I miss the household support (read: full time nanny) and more than ever I miss having my Pinoy family around. I miss my mom and my sisters who could conveniently and immediately arrange their own schedule to help out.

Fortunately, I think I finally found an organisation and a boss who could understand the demands of a working mother. Although I work full time (which is by the way not perceived very well if you are a mother in this supposedly "open minded" country), I always have the option to work at home and plan my hours so I can spend more time with my daughter. I sincerely think that if I don't have this kind of support, I would end up like most Dutch mothers working part time. I don't really have this option at the moment because the kind of work I do can't be really done on a part time basis nor with a 9-5 mentality.

I am somewhat relieved that things are getting back to normal. Our health is better, my daughter is happily back again at the nursery, and hubby and I are planning to have a short break next month. Work has been quite exciting as well. I am happy to be involved again with projects in developing countries including the Philippines. Likewise, the long hours at work paid off and I finally got funding for some projects in Africa. I am really excited to do some work in this region as this is something new to me.

So now things are back to normal programming and I hope it stays this way for awhile. For now I am just looking forward to enjoy this long Easter weekend.