Today's update.

Things are going well here back in Melbourne.

Xander's back on his routine and he's happier now. But some time in the last 2 months, he has transitioned to just taking 2 naps a day. Once in the morning and once in the mid-afternoon. It's tough because that leaves me with a lot less time to do what needs to be done around the house. Which explains my lack of updates here.

The hubs is back to work, gone from 7.30am to almost 5pm every day. I miss having him around. It was nice having him around to help out with the kid, knowing that it's okay for me to wake him up at 3am to deal with the kid when I reach the end of my tether. Now it's just me, except on the weekends. And I guess I just miss him. I miss us.

I've got tuition fees for my upcoming semester due in 2 weeks. >$2k AUD for just 2 modules. Sigh. It's getting REALLY expensive, but I guess it's an investment for our future. Now let's pray that hubs gets a full-time job soon.

Semester officially starts on July 25, and to be truthfully honest, I'm a little scared. I'm not sure how I'm going to balance it all. I had no troubles with working full time and studying part time. Because I had office hours. And evenings and weekends were all mine to study without interruptions.

But now, it's a completely different story. I'm caring for X 24/7. Fitting in time to study will be a huge challenge. One of my modules apparently requires me to be online for discussions at specific times everyday as part of the grading criteria. And knowing that we are all distance education students, this is likely to be evening hours. And evening hours are the worst time for me, because I'm required to feed the kid and put him to sleep. And this takes place from 5pm onwards and on/off until past 8pm. He just struggles to sleep and stay asleep because of disturbances from our neighbours coming home from work and the cars and the stomping up the stairs and the slamming of doors. Plus deal with dinner and dishes. How am I going to work this out? I don't know. Take each day as they come I guess.

The biggest challenge would be to continue engaging the little one in constructive play and communication throughout the day when I have studies to worry about and housework to do too. I refuse to become one of those parents who plonk their child in a playpen all day and let them fend for themselves. In short bursts, yes. They need the independent play time. But I strongly believe that he is benefiting from me interacting with him, playing with him, reading with him, etc. I don't want to compromise on that.

In short, this is going to be a test of my self-discipline, organizational skills and determination. Think I can do it? I hope I can.