Schedule for the day:
6am get up check Arse for poo
6.25 get terrorised for a bit
7am breakfast
8am play time
11am check arse for poo. change into day clothes. have snack.
12.30pm dinner
1pm check arse for poo.
2pm nap
This is not my schedule you understand. I wish it was but I don’t have have shits (at the moment.) Or narcolepsy.
This is my 6 month old baby’s itinerary. She set it, not me. These days I barely have time to check my own arse for poo. Mad the way you can be so busy, and still get absolutely nothing done.
One thing I was very aware of when I was pregnant, but that somehow still came as a shock to me, is how relentless life as a mum can be. It’s not so much that any one particular aspect is a graft, but life can sometimes feel like a Groundhog Day of dealing with other people’s body fluids, power drinking cups of tea before they go cold and trying to fit as much as physically possible into nap time.
Rainy days in particular can really fuck up your shit. There are literally libraries dedicated to this subject, but because it’s only affecting me now I’m going to pretend like it’s a hot take when I say; keeping a child entertained indoors is an extreme sport – even when they’re a baby.
Yeah, life on maternity leave seems to run at slower pace, and it’s weird how every day everything changes, yet nothing changes at the same time.
Meanwhile, while you’re up your eyeballs in washing and bottles; mums on Instagram seem to always be out doing fun stuff with their kids. And when they’re not out and about, they’re at home, “crafting” – a word that sparks so much irrational rage inside me I feel like I need lie down.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware that 90% of what you see online is staged, but even I have to admit that I start to feel guilty if I’ve spent yet another day indoors.
There’s a pressure to be constantly doing educational, insightful, inspiring thing with your child, which can lay the guilt on thick and fast when you’ve spent three days in your jarmies just surviving the exhaustion.
Which is why I’m writing this, post, not to moan about the trials and tribulations of a new mum – that’s already a given. But rather to let other new mums know that, despite what the apps on your phone suggest, were all just making it through the day – and some days better than others.
This morning alone I have mopped up 5 dirty nappies. And every time, I died a little bit inside. Just as I died a bit dying a little bit standing on the platform every morning on my way to work.
It strikes me then that no matter what you do you cannot escape the inevitable repetitiveness of some aspect of life. You get up, you clean your teeth, you have a shit.
Life’s what happens in between.
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