www.themacleodfamily.org

So Twins!!
Twice as nice
2 for the price of 1
Buy one get one free
Double trouble

My thoughts on this at the moment are a jumbled mess dominated by the focus on trying to get the family moved to America before it doubles in size some time in the early summer.

I am barely getting any sleep already, a combination of work stress, home pressure and a wife who has become queen of the fidget people means that I am knackered all the time, I am sure most parents would say that is early preparation for the months ahead.

I am so very excited about the prospect of twins, I was excited about one baby and happy that now we get to instantly jump ahead to a pair of siblings without the awkward single child phase but I feel like I won’t really be able to enjoy the build up until either I have a job offer in the US or we know for sure we will be staying here, the worry and uncertainty of trying to get moved is putting a bit of a damper on things.

Trying to find a job 5,000 miles away in the depths of the worst recession the western world has seen in more than half a century is a humbling experience. I suppose I had started to take my job here a bit for granted after being with the same company for 8 years. I have had a constant string of challenges and know that almost any part of the UK business would hire me if I wanted to work for them.

A good few parts of the US business want to hire me as well but can’t at the moment, the whole organisation was reorganised at the end of last year and still hasn’t had their budgets approved for this year so in effect have been in a hiring freeze since November. All the senior managers are getting to grips with the new org structure and obviously are focussed on that, any hires at the moment need to be approved at CEO level.

Hopefully budgets, headcount etc will sort themselves out in February some time and we will be able to get a job on the table in time to make the move happen, if not then having our babies in the UK on the NHS is just fine. Getting to the US before they are born would make a few things easier though, the higher salaries and lower tax rates there mean that our real terms income would be a lot higher than here, we would be closer to Melissas family which would make things easier, clearly we will be limited in our flying ability for the next few years so being able to drive to see most family would help.

Trying (and thus far failing) to find a job is a miserable experience, I am lucky to be reminded of this while I still have a good job and lucky not to be out of work and trying to find employement to support my family at the moment.