The great benefits of being a stay-at-home mum

Before we moved to Scotland we decided I would stay at home this year to ease the transition to a new life in an English-speaking country. This turned out to be a great arrangement for all of us.

Getting the family settled in

In the first months I spent a lot of time getting us organised in a new community and a new country - I was amazed at how much time I spent on these activities.

However, after the first week at school, I was told that I no longer needed to stay at school with my youngest son. In fact, it would be better for my son and the other children if I did not tag along any more, as this would improve interaction between the children. Hint taken.

Indulging in my hobbies

I continued to spend a lot of time helping the boys with their English and follow-up on school-work, but as one thing after the other was sorted, I had more time to indulge in hobbies.

I soon got into a routine where I started most mornings by walking the boys to school, jogging for 30-45 minutes and then doing 30 minutes of strength training at Curves. Even though exercising was my main hobby, I also did some volunteer work at school, took piano lessons and joined a couple of drawing classes.

I also went to the library a lot and ended up reading around 60 books during our stay in Scotland. This included audio books that I listened to while I was on the go or doing other things. In addition to these books I also read a lot of books with the children and we also listened to many audio books with them. Among our favourite books were Scottish history books for children and we learned a lot of Scottish history during our stay in Scotland.

Great benefits for the whole family

Among the benefits of me being a stay-at-home mum was that:

• We hardly ever had to go shopping or run errands on the weekends or evenings - this was taken care of by me during daytime
• I would walk the children to school and pick them up after school, help them settle in, follow up on homework, take them to the doctor or dentist as needed, stay at home with them if they were ill etc.
• The weekends and evenings were mostly free of house work. We sometimes did some housework together because it's not something I'm very fond of and I felt the pain should be shared, at least a little
• I planned our trips around Scotland during the day, so Friday after my husband finished work we could all set off for a new adventure where everything had been planned in advance
• I could spend hours socialising with my new friends during the day, so most evenings I was with my family
  
• I exercised more than I normally do, which meant I became stronger, fitter and happier
• I indulged in my hobbies during the day, so as soon as the children were home from school I was available for them
• I did management training and a project management certification course without it interfering with ongoing projects at work
• No stress at work meant I was more patient with my family and my overall mood was better. I also slept much more than I normally do, which also was a positive contribution to my mood. 

Back to working full time

Tomorrow it's back to sleep deprivation, yelling at the kids because I'm tired and stressed out from work (and then feeling lousy for doing it), and general frustration over having too little time to do all the things I want to do.

I know that somehow we will all get through it all, I will go back to a job I love and the kids will still grow up to be good human beings, despite their imperfect mum. And we will all have our memories of a year with much less stress than usual.

The benefits of renting a car

Before we moved to Scotland, we decided to get a rental car instead of buying a car or bringing our own from Norway. We wanted a Volkswagen Passat, but the car rental company could only guarantee that we would get a 'Station wagon', or a 'People carrier' as its called over here. I found this very strange at the time, but I soon understood why.

Our first car was a black Peugeot, but after a couple of  months we were told to take the car back to the car rental company and have it replaced with a new car.  This process was repeated every two to three months while we lived in Scotland. While we lived here we had two different Volkswagen Passat, two Peugeot 508 and a Hyundai Blue Drive.

I especially liked the Hyundai. When we were sitting in traffic or waiting at the lights it automatically stopped the engine, but instantly restarted it when the clutch was pressed. It was really smooth and I also liked it because it's good for the environment.  Another thing I liked about it was the really nice blue colour, which made it easy to spot in the car parks.


The main benefits of having a new car every couple of months were:

• We got to try different brands/models
  We're not very interested in cars and know very little about them. The car we have in Norway is the second one we've ever owned, though my husband did have an old car before he met me. This means we have very few cars to compare with, so we don't really know much about which cars are good and which cars are not. So far we've asked around and read a bit to try to find cars that best suit our needs. My ideal car is a car that is always reliable, has a decent acceleration and speed and that we 'never' have to take to the garage to get fixed. 
• We hardly ever had to clean the car
  By the time the kids had started making a mess in the back seat and it was starting to get a bit dirty, it was time for a new car. This meant I didn't have to hoover the car or clean it inside - perfect!
  Come to think of it, I never cleaned the exterior of any of our rental cars either.

We've really enjoyed having all those different rental cars, but in a few days we go back to Norway and our own car, which means we'll have to start cleaning our car again. Life's tough!