An overflowing mind

Earlier in the week I came across a Guardian article here , which featured a comic by a French illustrator called Emma. For those of you who haven't seen it, it describes how even when men take on chores in the household, it never works out even due to the amount of things that we have going on in our minds.

Now before I get anyone jumping down my throat, of course I'm not saying all men, or that working men don't also have things on their mind, but it is something that I too have noticed about the differences that mum's and dad's seem to have.

My partner does a lot of cooking for us, but all of the washing, cleaning, childcare etc. is down to me. Which is ok, he works full time and I don't. This is mostly due to the fact that where we are living the childcare costs the same as a months wages for me, so if I was to include travel and parking into the equation we would actually be worse off if I had gone back to work after maternity leave.

It does however mean my day often starts before his and ends well after. I was also doing all the night duty with our son up until he started sleeping through regularly at around 13 months old. I'm usually up at 6.30am and get Grayson settled for 7.30pm latest. During the day I'm on the go constantly, walking the dog, baby groups, shopping, cleaning, washing, tidying, cooking, basically whatever needs to be done. Alongside this is a constant narrative of extra things....

So the every day stuff; baby needs to be fed by this time, dog walked by this time, in order to get to baby group by this time and then back in time to make lunch and then clean the bathroom whilst he naps and get the washing on and the bins go out on this Friday and so on.

Then it gets mixed with the other things; wedding this weekend, visiting family on this day, when's my car MOT due? what about my partners, our house insurance, have I been neglecting friendships? Does Grayson need to visit the dentist yet or is he still too young....

And the even bigger picture. We're moving house. Soon. And both sets of estate agents are being wankers. Emails multiple times a week pressuring us to move faster (we're renting and in no way want to be paying for two houses at once), or organising viewings of the house we're currently in without asking us if we're in that day and offering to let themselves in - last time they left our front door open, I don't trust them at all. We also have a dog who will be very confused if a stranger lets themselves into our home.

I'm also planning a hen do for my best friend, chasing people for RSVPs, trying to get accommodation booked, wondering if I can loose enough weight by then to fit into my old dresses....

So I'm not saying that men don't worry, but whoever the majority of household chores and childcare falls upon ends up under a whole bunch of pressure, especially as there are a lot of women who will be working part time (or full time) and taking all this on as well.

Arghh we might be moving!

We are quite possibly crazy. We've only lived here a year. The last move was stressful as fuck, we were both coming from two different houses, he had a dog and I had a 3 month old son, he hadn't bloody packed anything when I turned up with the van. I was hoping we wouldn't be doing it again until we were ready to buy. I quite literally hate moving house. I am super organised yet for some reason all my long term relationships have been with incredibly laid back people. This makes moving beyond stressful. I want to be packed well in advance, to have things boxed by room, labelled to where they're going to go and an idea of room/furniture layout sorted. Now we're going to do it again with dog and now an energetic toddler in tow. Eek!

The house we're hoping for is lovely. Slightly less rent, twice as many bedrooms (hurruh for space!) and also the same village as my parents. Extra rooms will hopefully reinvent our lives as people can actually stay over our house in a bedroom instead of our tiny lounge with the dog! We also really, really want to become foster parents and the extra space will hopefully get us on track with that.

Right now though all I feel is impending dread! We're meeting the landlady tomorrow so that she can meet our dog, Zero, and see that she's not a mean one that destroys homes, then it could be all go from there!

Going to miss this sprog's bedroom if we move though, it's my favourite room in the house!

Struggling Saturday

I acknowledge mum guilt. I know it's real and I know a lot of us suffer from it. I also know it's all a bit daft as long as Grayson is healthy then really he is fine. It doesn't make days like today any easier though.

Today is Saturday. Tom is staying away with friends this weekend last minute so I didn't make any plans and it's just me and Grayson all day. It's half nine and we've been up nearly three hours yet all we've done is eat breakfast and watch The Wiggles. We live in a lovely city with lots to do, I'm surrounded by housework that could do with some attention and the dog will need walking but I just feel overwhelmed and trapped. It's shit when you feel like your anxiety is affecting your family, when you have a million ideas in your head of what you want to do but you just can't make it happen. It sounds ridiculous, even typing it out makes me feel a bit daft but that's honestly how it is.

Grayson seems happy enough. I just don't think I'm being fair to him though. I feel like we should be out at the park, seeing friends, running around soft play, something that gets his mind working and gives him a chance to blow off steam. Not stuck in a playpen next to a useless mum who's wondering how she'll manage to get a single thing done today. It's a horrible way to be, knowing that you have a problem and not knowing how you can get past it today.

Injections!

We made it through!

After putting them off thanks to extreme teething followed by an ear infection and then a long weekend at the inlaws I finally bit the bullet and booked the sproglet in for his 12 month injections.

It's definitely something I was over thinking. He was totally fine with all of his past injections. But he was smaller then. Easier to hold down. I could breastfeed him for comfort. This time he would be older, a stong willed little human who would rather be running around the nurse's office trying to touch the shiny bins (seriously why do toddlers love bins so much?!). 

This time however I had back-up. My partner was off work, he even offered to be the one to hold Grayson and although I am a huge control freak I thought it was for the best. It's nice that we can both be involved in aspects of baby life that I guess are mundane as we all go through it but not all Dads will get to take part in.

We were lucky,we had an amazing nurse and although I wasn't expecting there to be 4 injections it went really smoothly. Phew! Seems he deals with being prodded by a stranger much more easily than dealing with those darn teeth coming through!

First Birthday Butterflies!

When Grayson’s first birthday was just around the corner and people were asking my what he wanted, it was hard in a way because he’s a baby, he doesn’t really want anything. So I went for the practical things, clothes mostly, some wooden toys because they’ll last forever and a trike. Told people that anything a bit unusual was great.

Which is how we ended up with a box of caterpillars being delivered to our door…

It might seem like many parents worst nightmare having a bunch of insects arrive at your house, we thought it was fabulous though! (Thank-you inlaws for understanding our quirky preferences)

Insect Lore send you some very cute tiny caterpillars in a pot, you watch them grow and eventually they climb to the top of the pot and become chrysalises. Then you can carefully move them into their butterfly garden and over the course of a week or so they gradually become butterflies.

This was a lot of fun, Grayson didn’t really understand what he was seeing, being so young still, but he loved it when they became butterflies and when we set them free.


This is something that I would definitely recommend to others looking for a quirky gift, especially if your child is old enough to learn about all the different stages.

Sun's Out, Mum's Out

It's frustrating but I have to acknowledge it, I do much better when the sun is shining. If the weather is grey I can easily sink into a pattern of only leaving the house when I need food or some kind person notices and drags me out. It leaves me stir crazy and with so many guilty feelings for trapping my son indoors. The sun has been shining for 2 weeks now and we've been out every day.

It's not been easy as such, just much easier. We just walk - or in Grayson's case trike - along the cycle track behind our house, alongside a nature reserve and across the streets, stopping at the ruins of a local nunnery so that he can burn off some energy each day. It makes me feel less lonely even though I'm not specifically making any effort to see people, there's always people about. And that's enough sometimes.

A year on...

It's still surreal having been a mum for a year, I've gone from living at home with my parents to living with my partner in a new city. There have been days when I haven't wanted to leave the house, where I've felt like I physically can't, we dealt with reflux for the first 8 months of Grayson's life. More vomit from a tiny human than I ever thought possible. A&E trips, strangers making comments and no sleep.

It took me until he was a year old to get out to baby group. I'm not proud of that but now I see it as it is what it is. I'm lucky that when I went to get him weighed after his birthday I got talking to a worker at the baby centre who understood anxiety and encouraged me to come along to messy play sessions anyway. It was one of the most terrifying things at the time. Walking into a room full of strangers is my idea of hell. But Grayson loved it.

It took ten and a half months before he slept through the night. The worst nights he was waking 9 times a night. I thought I was going to die from tiredness. Now we get a night or two a week that he sleeps through. The most was five nights in a row. I didn't sleep for most of them, turns out no matter how much you want sleep, when your baby starts suddenly sleeping through the night you'll probably think he's dead. And check on him constantly.

So that's where we're at now, still learning, still dealing with being the odd one, but always searching for our next adventure!