Welcome to daddy daycare

I lost my job in March. It came out of the blue but a welcome relief. To say I hated my job was an understatement.

I was lucky though. As soon as the redundancy news flashed before my face I got offered a gig at Hearst. As some of you know, I worked there previously. Spent over five years building some amazing relationships and doing some amazing work on Sugarscape. Love that place.

Then more freelance work rolled in, at lots of different publishers. Amazing! Kind of.

The last time I freelanced I was a young man. 2004 to be precise. It was a drunken year. DJ Casper’s Cha Cha Slide was Number 1 and £120 per day for writing shizzle was perfect for a beer drinking, cigarette puffing, pizza eating young bee like me.

Fast forward to 2016 and to my amazement, the journalist’s freelance day rate has stayed pretty much the same at many places. Some are lower, some only slightly higher. Although happily accepted by the rolly smoking newbies, I now have a mortgage, three kids and a Volvo XC90.

New plan. Pitching stories and features to the nationals, coming up with and selling in amazing ideas for monthlies and going for big gun jobs.

While Plan A was still formulating (mainly in my brain), my wonderful wife aka MustBeTheMummy, who is the dogs bollocks at PR, gets offered a couple of amazing gigs. Starting ASAP.

Now what? With a 6-month-old, who has just started weaning and summer holidays in full swing for two school-goers, the best solution for Team Saul is for me to take over the reins at home.

Flat peach went down a treat. Let the weaning commence! #babyboy #weaning #babyfoodideas #6months

A photo posted by Mango Saul (@mustbethedaddy) on Aug 5, 2016 at 10:27am PDT

Quick side note. I attempted this in 2014 and it was the toughest five months of my life. Being a stay at home parent, no matter what anyone says, is undoubtedly harder than getting on a 7am train to go to work.

So, until school kicks in, after school clubs are booked, the best nursery is sourced, a new permanent job is found for me, it’s time for some daddy daycare.

Oh shit.

Everything will be all right, as long as there is TV.