Motherhood
Becoming a mum at 40 is no laughing matter.
I got up this morning feeling and looking like a sack of last year’s potatoes, (the ones that have been out in the coal shed all Winter: moldy, puffy and a little green) staggered to the kitchen and hit go on the kettle.
So far, so good.
I put a tablespoonful of my fancy Argyll Roasters, 100% mountain water extracted decaf (I don’t know either) into my cafetière. I even managed to let the kettle cool a bit before I did the biz and then, just as I was creeping toward the front door… (not to make a run for it, but to go and enjoy my coffee outside with the wind on my face, which, in an ideal world, is how my every day would begin…)
I stood on the creaky one.
‘WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!’
Oh bollocks.
So, back to the kitchen, eight scoops, shaky shake, gather up cosy, grumbling bundle, take to front room (he’s still not awake), pop pop pop, wheech off nappy, whack on new dry one, pop pop pop, bottle into gub (still not awake) sook sook sook…
Six and a half months in, I’ve got this down. (And those smiles, those sleepy, gorgeous smiles…)
It’s just everything else that is going to shit!
So far this morning, I have attempted to do a washing, (there are approximately four loads waiting, many of which items are coated in a variety of multi-coloured veggie mush that will need to be soaked and scraped before machine-loading and those are just my clothes…) I have run out of the extra-special, baby-kind, eco-friendly Smol sachets so have added a tiny dribble of Persil non-bio instead and crossed my fingers that the small man won’t be itchying and scratchying all week as a result, sworn loudly for the third time because I’ve burnt my toast (I had to put it down again because it was cold and someone had turned the toaster down to 2) the only saving grace is that the smoke detector has run out of beep (I may or may not have removed the battery), stood on the cat and sworn again because she is tiny and I really don’t want to break her, fallen over the leg of the new high-chair (why do they stick out so far?), stood on a piece of surprisingly sharp cat litter on the bathroom floor and tried and failed to find my spectacles.
Did I mention it was 4.45am?
Becoming a mum at 40 is HARD.
I am used to being a hyper-organised force of nature who gets things DONE.
Over the past few months I have somehow morphed into a perma-knackered, befuddled buffoon who bruises herself on literally everything and can’t even successfully toast a slice of bread!
My back hurts, my shoulders hurt, my neck hurts, my brain hurts, my fingers hurt (I have damaged my thumb unscrewing baby bottle tops, I shit you not), my TEETH hurt (what?), literally my entire body hurts.
I never get any time to myself. Any. Ever.
I am ON twenty-four hours a day.
My new job is an 168 hour working week.
Even when I am snoozing (sleep is but a vague memory at this point) I am still on duty, listening for the slightest wheeze, the tiniest cough; meanwhile the small man is sleeping, literally ‘like a baby’ ten hours solid, every night!
Now. This may sound like an ungrateful diatribe, and it is.
I am going to my mum and dad’s (Grinny and Grumpy) next week and I have been promised one whole beautiful glorious day to myself, A WHOLE DAY OFF.
The pour souls will be shattered by the end of it, but they did offer…
I’ll let you know how that goes.