Weather VS the Working Mom

My morning commute includes a 1.7 mile walk, broken up by a 10-15 minute train ride. It is not a long or difficult commute, and I have timed it to the minute, so that I know exactly when I need to leave the house to catch the train so that I can get Ivor to nursery and be in my office before 8:30. However, winter and my sweet baby turning into an opinionated toddler has certainly made commuting more challenging.

More and more I find myself thinking about my daily commute as a battle ground! Let me tell you, it is no mean feat to navigate city streets, public transport and Scottish weather with a toddler in tow AND still get to work on time. In fact, just getting up and getting us both dressed in time to catch our train is challenging enough some days (especially when one of us has regular melt-downs about not being allowed to wear his Thomas slippers outside or having to leave his cars at home), but when you add icy sidewalks, driving rain, below-freezing temperatures and/or gail-force winds it really gets interesting.

Take yesterday for example:

After our usual morning routine of dressing and packing bags, I bundled Ivor, his nursery bag, breakfast and my purse into his stroller and hit the road. It was raining and there was an emotionally charged disagreement about using the rain cover (a certain toddler thinks anything hindering his view of vehicles on the road is horrible, but he also hates rain in his face...) Due to aforementioned altercation, which left one of us crying, we were a few minutes behind schedule so I knew I needed to speed-walk/run if we were going to catch the train.

We made it to the train just in time and I struggled to squeeze the stroller through the narrow door, past standing passengers who looked on with annoyance. (As a side note: half the seats on the train are usually empty, but for some reason a bunch of the passengers seem to prefer standing right at the door, making it difficult for new passengers to board the train and clogging up the only accessible space for strollers and disabled passengers.) I fed Ivor his breakfast on the train, while he alternated between eating, jabbering and cowering in fear of the 'guy'.

Once we were out of the station, the forecasted 50 mile/hr winds kicked up, turning the stroller into a 'sail' that I could barely keep upright. I fought the headwind and the stroller, and the driving rain as I made my way through town and up the steep (and I do mean STEEP) hill to nursery. At the top of the hill, a strong gust of wind nearly blew me off my feet and displayed my underwear to the construction workers gathering nearby. By the time I got to nursery to face the pram storage chaos (I will share more about this another time), I was soaked with rain and sweat, and my hair looked like a wild animal.

In the end I got to work 2 minutes late, but I count that as a triumph considering. While I was in the lift (after all of the above, I opted not to climb the seven flights of stairs), I realised that I only had one ear ring on. It is unclear whether I lost one in the journey to work or just forgot to put both on before I left the flat!

The way home was even more interesting, involving a pile of prams, missing shoes, yet more wind and different train route, but this is a story for another time.

More stories of life as a working mom to come.