Every year at this time, my business is quiet and a very dear friend’s Event Management company is super dooper busy.  Event Management and Incentive Travel is part of my background in my Old World, my “before babies” world.  So I don my heels and corporate frocks and shimmy into their office and happily soak up the dynamic buzz their team creates.  I love to dip my toes into that Old World and this week I belly flopped right on into the deep end, with a 5 day interstate conference.  Yep, as in another state.  On a plane.  Away from my babies.

But before you get too concerned for my welfare, I need to point out I was staying at Palazzo Versace Hotel.

You see, the Old World is all about fancy hotels and terribly special events where, whilst I help look after clients checking every little thing is in order to ensure they enjoy an amazing and memorable experience, someone else makes MY bed each day, cooks my meals and even washes the dishes.  Um, yay!

If I play my cards right someone will even take care of the teeny tiny little pile of laundry I accumulate in this world where I temporarily live alone.

I love this world and I do often miss it.  I choose not to go back there permanently as I have a new life now.   A life in my New World.

The New World is all about our suburban home which is bursting at the seams with chaos and love, and more sibling arguments than I care to acknowledge.  It’s also decidedly unpolished.

No-one makes my bed in the New World.  I have to make it myself.  As a bonus, I also get to make three others.

I make my own dinner, rarely 3 courses but often with wine, and sometimes I feel I’m running an open all hours a-la-carte restaurant. Oh, and I set up the breakfast buffet every morning.    Guests can have Weetbix, Weetbix or Weetbix.  Don’t get me started about the lunches.

Instead of the long, hot, uninterrupted baths I enjoyed in the Old World, I run bubble baths for others, and wrangle slippery little bodies that never want that bath to end.

No-one turns down our bed here in the New World, and our sheets no longer boast high thread counts. Instead, I tuck tired little bodies into beds, snuggling them under crochet rugs made by their grand grandmother.

The teeny, tiny laundry pile I create on my own is dwarfed within minutes by a mountain of muddy rugby socks, school uniforms and towels that never seem to find their own way off the floor.

As I flew home from the Old World to the New World yesterday I couldn’t help but reflect on how much I love them both. I think I am terribly lucky to literally enjoy the best of both worlds.

But for now, our Middle Size is turning 6 and because his Mum was busy in the Old World she hasn’t had time to bake so I am off to add smarties to the tops of 25 store bought cupcakes for him to take into his class.

I am also going to do reading groups with him and his Kindy buddies.  Do you think anyone would mind me wearing my Versace slippers?

Do your old and new world ever collide?