Category Archives: family

Two

2011

Is she ok?

They were the first words I spoke after becoming a mummy, literally seconds after becoming a mummy in fact as I felt the wet warmth of a baby on the back of my calves (I gave birth in a funny position alright?!).

No one said anything.

I bowed my heavy head down and rested my forehead on my forearm. Exhausted, nervous. Waiting.

She cried.

Relief flooded me and I wanted to turn around and I wanted to see her and hold her and touch her but I couldn’t move without help and then suddenly there she was.

But I had checked out already.

***

2012

I try to remember. I really try. I remember the presents and the special birthday outfit and that walking was new and unsteady and words weren’t there yet.

I remember the cake and the weather and writing in the card.

I remember being just exhausted. Empty, sad. I remember watching from across the room, too scared to get close.

***

2013

I have this kid and she is amazing. She’s bright and funny and cheeky and she’s mine.

I tell her that I love her everyday and the best feeling in the world is her warm weight leaning into my body, her breath on my neck and her fist grasping my top or my hair.

She’s loopy and we play and sing and chat and she gets me and I get her and I hope that really, all of that stuff that happened before, it’s the past. It’s over and gone and now we’re here, exactly two years since that first cry and first cuddle and she’s sitting on my knee and looking up as I look down and that is the moment that is real and that matters.

It’s not all gone, I’m still recovering and I’m very conscious of that. But I can’t change what was and in wanting to do so I risk missing the moments that happen every single day. And there’s no way I’m doing that.

gasp Fish!

3 Replies

Mummy goes on about this blog like it’s hard or something. I can build a tower of Mega Bloks THIS tall with all the red ones together and if I can do that I can do this. Plus, thanks to Tots 100 and Money Supermarket there is a lot at stake here and frankly I don’t think mummy is up to the job…

Ok, listen up.

Daddy told me to put my coat on because we were going to see some fish. I had never seen fish before and it was cold but I still decided that I would because I might quite like fish.

You see, mummy and daddy take me to the park and for walks and stuff but they act like there isn’t much more to do. I’m not one and a half any more and I know that they’re fibbing because I stayed awake all the way to the place they were calling the Sealife Centre so I know that actually there are lots of really, really fun things for us to do when I need a break from trying to teach mummy that you climb up the slide at the park, the steps are boring and I’m telling you guys, trying to climb up a wet slide for the gazillionth time is really super fun.

Anyway, we got there and left the car outside. Mummy would probably say something boring like there’s loads of parking spaces or how good it was that out of season parking is free. Boring right? I know you’re only in this to hear about the fish.

Mummy talked to a lady for a bit about our ticket, she seemed nice but she wasn’t a fish so I took it upon myself to find them. Before I could there were more grown-ups who wanted to take our photo, I don’t blame them because I had let mummy brush my hair that morning so I looked pretty and I happily climbed up onto the bench to say cheese. He told us there were crocodiles under our seat but I knew that he was being silly because there weren’t (I checked) and then daddy started being boring and talking about green screens and mummy said maybe if I was bigger it would have been more fun and I just wanted to see the fish so I marched off into the darkness to find them.

There were loads!

Everywhere I looked there were fish; big ones and small ones swimming and making bubbles. I liked standing on the step at every tank so I could see better, the fish swam really fast right past me.

We saw some things called jellyfish (glowy) and turtles (I wanted to stroke them but mummy said no…I tried when she wasn’t looking). We saw some really nice colourful fish that daddy called Nemo but I didn’t know their names, they were stripy though.

There were giant turtles and big fish called sharks. We saw a crocodile too, I know they snap but I think the one we saw was asleep so I snapped for him. There were some more grown-ups who were really clever and knew loads of things and they said crocodiles are actually a bit lazy in real life and that’s why they didn’t snap or anything.

There was a really good tunnel where fish lived and because no one else was there I could run AND see the fish. I think that’s really clever. Daddy lifted me up to see above the walls and I saw a shark super close, it kept blinking it’s eyes at me so I did it back and I think it wanted to be my friend.

Then we saw some penguins. I think this was probably my best bit. I mean, I liked the fish and I still want to stroke a turtle but the penguins were really funny and they played chase with me and did lots of silly swimming.

Next we went to have some juice in the restaurant. I wanted some cake too, they looked yummy, but mummy said no. Daddy realised afterwards that kids can eat for free so I could have had all the cake that I wanted!

There was an awesome looking soft play bit but there were some big boys in there and I went shy. I needed my nappy changing anyway so mummy took me to the toilets where there was room for me to lay down and behave like I always have to do when my nappy comes off for some reason. Plus, I knew that there was a gift shop and I wanted to see if there were any turtles I could stroke in there.

I made mummy buy the photo with the crocodiles, it turns out that they were there after all and mummy and daddy are pulling silly faces so I wanted to keep it.

I thought that we would be going home now that we had seen everything and I had a new toy but then I saw the sea! See, there really are so many good things to do really, really close to home.

Tickets cost from £10.15 (online) or you can buy family tickets which save you money so that you can buy cute turtle toys in the gift shop. Under 3’s (that’s me!) are free so we can go lots.

The photo cost £8 by the way, and it’s priceless believe me.

Mummy says that we were there for nearly two hours – she knows because our visit totally replaced my nap time! – so the price is pretty good. Especially when it’s winter so we had the place pretty much to ourselves and we could throw stones in the sea afterwards. You should definitely go.

That was easy…I’m going to go and get one of the bananas in the kitchen that mummy thinks I can’t reach and my turtle is coming to help…

Thank you for sending mummy a family ticket Money Supermarket!

Farce

7 Replies

INT – LOUNGE – EARLY MORNING

[A woman sits on a sofa wrapped in two blankets. The steam from a hot mug on tea of the table next to her swirls in the dawn light that seeps through the gap in the curtains. She shifts in her seat slightly and opens the laptop laid across her legs.]

NARRATOR – CLARA – SPOKEN WHILE TYPING

While my body seems to be slowly giving up on me – it’s day 30 of illness as I write this – my mind is a flurry of activity, ideas that I can’t keep up with and sinuses that I can’t breathe though.

[She pauses to take a sip of tea]

So while there are (hopefully) interesting things to come, photos and crafty things and posts and stuff, for now things are merely ticking over. Aside from the days where I force my ailing limbs into mild activity it has been a pretty quiet start to the new year here.

But writing about my current sneeze per hour record (18) or just how bad teething in those final four back molars can be (although we have one and a half through now) just isn’t doing it for me. Instead, I leave you with an insight to just some of the scintillating conversations that take place right here in our humble home.

CAMERA PANS OUT.

FADE TO KITCHEN – MID MORNING

[Beans drives two toy cars up and down the back door. Clara stands at the sink slowly working her way through the mountain of washing up. The husband, sat on the sofa in the lounge, shouts though]

THE HUSBAND
There’s one of those things in the fridge.

CLARA
Hmm?

THE HUSBAND
Y’know. That vegetable. I think it’s a vegetable. Does Mr Bloom have vegetables?

CLARA
[exasperated]
Yes. Mr Bloom has vegetables.

BEANS
[dropping one car and turning around]
Bwoom! Bwoom!
[singing]
Lalalalalalala.

THE HUSBAND
Well there’s one of those in there.

CLARA
[retrieving the orange plastic car from behind the oven]
A vegetable or specifically one of Mr Blooms vegetables?

BEANS
[singing]
Lalalalalalalala.

THE HUSBAND
One like one he has.

CLARA
[back at the sink, fishing bits of old food out of the plug hole]
Are you talking about the butternut squash?

THE HUSBAND
I don’t know. Does Mr Bloom have one of those?

CLARA
Yes.

THE HUSBAND
Then yes. That

***

CUT TO LOUNGE – AFTERNOON

BEANS
[walks across room dragging doll by one arm]
Stinky bum!

CLARA
Do you need your nappy changing?

BEANS
[firmly]
Yuh.

CLARA
Come on then, let me check.

BEANS
[firmly]
No.

CLARA
Yes, we need to change your nappy.

BEANS
No…No no no.

CLARA
[standing and preparing to make chase]
Please!

BEANS
No!

[Beans giggles and runs to far side of the room. She stops, lays down on the floor and starts to fake snore. Loudly]

***
CUT TO BEDROOM – MORNING

CLARA
Shall we get you dressed?

BEANS
Cloves!

CLARA
[sorting clean washing into piles]
Yes, we need to find you some clothes.

BEANS
[diving into washing pile and throwing clothes high into the air]
Me top. Me dressed. Top.

[Beans walks to bed and proudly proffers pair of the Husbands boxer shorts]

Me top. Dressed. Cloves!

CLARA
Well…

***

CUT TO KITCHEN – MID AFTERNOON

THE HUSBAND
What do you do with a butternut squash anyway?

***

CUT TO LOUNGE – EARLY AFTERNOON (NAP TIME)

[Clara looks pleadingly at the husband. She flutters her eyelashes]

THE HUSBAND
[tense]
You want a tea?

CLARA
[innocently]
Oh yes please. That would be lovely.

THE HUSBAND
[Begrudgingly]
Fine.

CLARA
Thank you. I love you.

THE HUSBAND
Where’s your mug?

[Clara points at the husband and raises eyebrows. The husband mutters and exits to the kitchen]

THE HUSBAND
[shouting from kitchen]
I’m dipping my balls in your tea you know.

***

CUT TO LOUNGE – EARLY EVENING

[Clara and Beans sit on the floor surrounded by toys and mess. Clara yawns and checks the clock again to see if it's bedtime yet]

BEANS
[picking up her shopping bag as she rises to her feet]
Mama? Shop!

CLARA
Are you going to the shop? Could you bring mummy a strawberry please?

BEANS
[slipping bag onto her arm]
Yuh.

CLARA
[waving]
Ok, bye bye. I’ll miss you! Love you.

BEANS
Bye bye, see you soon.

[Beans walks several laps around the room, swinging her bag]

BEANS
[turning to Clara. Excitedly]
Hello!

CLARA
[Excitedly]
Hello! You’re back!

BEANS
Back shop. Cuddles?

[Clara and Beans hug]

CLARA
It’s so nice to see you!

BEANS
[pulls away from hug and riffles through shopping bag before pulling out a small plastic strawberry]
Mama sawberry!

CLARA
[Excitedly]
Thank you!

[Repeat times infinity until bedtime]

***

CUT TO LOUNGE – LATE EVENING

[Clara lays with her feet up across the Husbands lap]

THE HUSBAND
We should stop giving her pudding.

CLARA
[Dismissively]
Oh we can’t do that! It’s just a phase. She’ll eat.

THE HUSBAND
[Animated]
Would you eat your tea if you knew you were getting an amazing pudding?

CLARA
It would depend what’s for tea.

THE HUSBAND
[Smugly, thinking he's scored the conversation winner]
Robbie Williams is for pudding. Would you still eat your tea?

CLARA
[Firmly]
What’s for tea?

…

CLARA
Wait, and could I eat it off Robbies naked torso?

[The husband pushes Claras legs off his lap and sighs]

***

Three Months In PJs…

(Ir)Rational

3 Replies

It’s amazing how much stuff a single cardboard box can hold. Memories and odd shoes and crumpled, forgotten receipts still in pockets, photos and pennies, familiar but far away scents.

By the time I was ripping the parcel tape from the third box like a plaster off a grazed knee it dawned on me that Beans remembers none of this, our previous life thrown into boxes and locked away since a time that she will never remember. Her home isn’t this place where I’m filling cupboards and windowsills with trinkets and hanging pictures on walls. There’s only one home she knows and that’s the place that we are soon to leave.

Whereas my home, my life, spills from the boxes and bounces across the newly laid floor in the newly painted rooms of somewhere I don’t know either.

Each box reminds me off a million things all at once. Memories caught up in stuff and lost to the past – Christmas pyjamas (aged 6 months), wedding photographs, the tiny hat that was slipped over Beans tiny new head minutes after she was born, scan photos, long forgotten toys missing all of their integral bits. There’s happy and sad and despair and love jumping out as soon as the lid is lifted.

What have I lost and what did I never realise that I had?

No matter how hard I try the feeling that I have caused this, the gaping hole of loss and waste and grief threatening to swallow me whole because we are here now. But like leaked oil painting a rainbow in a puddle happiness floats to the top and tells me that all that I have been through has brought us to an okay place.

We unpack until we have enough torn cardboard that it blocks the light from streaming into the room and I remember. The one bag I went on and on and on about when everything was being packed. The one bag I wanted to keep above everything else.

It has the sleep suit that we dressed Beans in, the one that my mum having held a cool glass of water to my lips as I panted through contractions rushed out to buy when we discovered that the tiny baby sized everything that we had stocked up on simply swamped this new person.

It’s the one that I really remember her wearing and I don’t remember much else from that day. It’s the one that she is wearing in my favourite tiny baby photo taken of her.

It’s the one I want to keep.

Two sides of me battle to be heard while I try to keep a calm exterior, riffling back through things I have already been through twice.

It’s not here.

It has to be here. I need it. I need to have something tangible from then.

You have Beans. That’s what you have, everything else is superficial.

I need it. It has to be here. I was going to keep it, maybe let Beans dress a doll in it, tuck it away in the back of a drawer forever just to have it.

It’s gone. You have the photo and the memory and the baby.

…

It has gone, the sleep suit, our old life, some of the darkness. Gone.

I try to imagine how it will feel to lay underneath the duvet underneath the ceiling in this new house. The house that has caused so much stress and so many tears and that will bring us back together as a family and a place to make happy, home.

I want this to work, I want to cope and to adjust and to settle and to live. I want to find that tiny sleep suit and I want not to feel guilt and grief, to let go and to hold on.

BAM

174 Replies

Until now I have been selective with the images that I have shown of our new home, I’m not really sure why that is. It’s not our decoration or mess or rubbish or damage so I have nothing to be embarrassed about do I? We have simply inherited what has been left by a combination of the previous owners efforts and the councils rip it all out and ignore the rest approach.

Maybe part of me has been reluctant to share because it makes it real doesn’t it? BAM! Here’s a photo of our home in all it’s glory, this is our reality. Maybe it’s because I’m worried you might all see something that I don’t and say ‘oh it’s fine! You’re worried about nothing’ or worse, that I’m ungrateful because it’s been provided by the government and it’s cheep and a damn sight better than being left homeless. I know. I can see Jeremy Kyle curling his lip as he spits ‘grow a pair, put something on the end of it and grow up because we’re paying for you and your baby’ at me. I really, really know.

Yesterday I wrote this and after a day offline I logged onto support and care and love and loveliness that made me sob a little and floored me a bit at just how amazing a community can be. Thanks in the most part to a certain flame haired goddess of blogging my post got around and people wanted to help.

Now, I’m not great with help. I’m learning and I’m trying to get better at accepting it when I need to but frankly no one wants to say that they can’t provide what their family needs do they? I certainly never expected, in a millionmillionmillion years to get the response that I did. Really, I am amazed and touched and just wow.

So because you’re all so lovely and you asked and it means so much and I really have no way to thank you I have decided that honesty is the way forward. But please know that this is not me asking for charity or begging or taking advantage. |This is not me asking for pity. Truly, having such a lovely bunch behind me gives me all that I need.

Landing

BAM! Here is our house. I don’t think the photos do it justice. Mainly because they’re dark (no electricity) and were taken covertly when we were being shown around.

Stairs. Obviously

Lounge. The perfectly good flooring was ripped up before we got the keys. Those boxes are the kitchen units

The wallpaper in the main bedroom and lounge needs to be stripped because its really beyond repair, as are the walls that they hide. There is no way that we can afford to carpet the floors so the husband is currently a blur in a mist of sawdust as he sands the floorboards as best as he can in the hope that with a bit of stain they’ll be ok.

Bathroom

Landing

The bathroom is just ick, even after I emptied a bottle of bleach down the toilet, and the thought of touching the vinyl tiles that are stuck directly to the floorboards and ripped up in places makes me come over all funny.

Beans room

~~Jamie and Joshs~~ Beans room thankfully is probably going to cause us the least bother and this makes me happy because I am determined that we can make it super nice for her to soften the blow of all the unsettled-ness.

Our bedroom

If fact that is why this all hits me so hard, it’s Beans. She’s old enough to be affected but not big enough to properly understand. I want to make a home that is bright and warm and comfortable and above all, safe for her. I want her to be happy there and have toys and space and love, not the current patches of damp and crumbling walls and dangerous garden…

Garden

I have picked up a couple of bits of cheap furniture where I can which I’m actually pretty pleased about a) because it was cheap, b) because it’s retro fabulous and c) because all our money needs stretching as far as it can when we have paint and food and paint and cookers and wood and turf and sofas and paint and flooring and furniture and bleach and everything else to buy too.

So that’s it, that is our reality. If any kindly PRs need furniture reviews or appliance reviews or have spare toys to spoil Beans because I feel so guilty then you know where I am. But your support means more to me than anything.

Edited to add:

Due to the absolute influx of totally unexpected interest and support over this post I want to add a few things:

As mentioned above, but to clarify, these photographs were taken during the viewing of the property. In the photograph of the lounge you can see boxes which, as stated in the comment below the image, shows new kitchen units which were installed prior to the keys being given to us.

The majority of rubbish has been cleared and when we pointed out the ‘health and safety’ issues that the garden posed, the uneven ground was removed and shingled over. The end of the garden (seen in the photo above) runs alongside a public alley and currently there is no fencing at all along the boundary meaning the rear of the property is totally open. Fencing will be erected there but we are waiting to hear when this work will be done, as well as a repair to the gate to the front garden (it doesn’t open) and the replacement of the broken and graffiti painted kitchen window. The damaged floorboards that you can see in the above images have been replaced and a toilet seat has been fitted.

The rest of the house remains exactly as these photographs show. We were given a voucher to help towards the costs of ‘decoration’ and although much needed and appreciated it won’t even cover half of the costs per room and all the work will be done by ourselves. I lucked out when I married someone who has the skills needed to do all the work and obviously it is extremely normal to decorate when moving into a new home – however to say we are not shocked at the sheer amount of work needed (all the wallpaper needs removing because of the state it’s in, the floors need work etc etc etc) and the condition in which we received the property would be a lie. It will take much more than a fresh coat of paint and really is not liveable at all, especially with a young toddler.

I am saying these things now in the hope that it answers the questions that some have asked and to make everyone aware that in no way have I exaggerated things or deliberately omitted information. This post was written merely to illustrate our reality, the life that our family is living right now. I never expected the reaction that it has caused and the support has been overwhelming. In spite of everything, I know that there are people in much worse situations and believe me, I am grateful that we have a system that provides housing to those who need it.

While I’m here I want to thank every single person that has taken time to read, email, comment, tweet and message me. I have had over 500 messages in the 48 hours since this post was published. All of your support means so much to me and I will get back to every single one of you.

Ding Ding, Round One (The Time I Became My Mother)

Homeless

15 Replies

If I had written this post last week it would have been bleak. It would have detailed my feelings of failure and desperation on the day that I had to walk from a crowded, hot waiting room to sit behind a glass safety screen that reflected my pained expression back to me as I said ‘we have no where to live‘.

That day I officially applied for housing with homeless status because our home has gone, our lives lay half forgotten in storage and I can’t make a home for my husband and my baby and it’s all my fault. The feeling of sadness and failure and guilt that circled around me like a fog, thick and choking, is something that I won’t forget in a hurry; I’ve let everyone down, made everyone’s lives hard and downright miserable but I’ve also made things so much worse. The husband couldn’t work because I wouldn’t let him. Because without him I would not have coped. No way. So when our landlord put our house up for sale and when it sold within days of being on the market and when we were asked to leave we had no where to go and no money to go there. No savings, no money for a deposit, nothing.

Signing a form after form after form declaring us homeless and broke and broken cut deeper than anything ever has. And I’m covered in scars.

A week ago, if I had written this then, I would be telling you about the flat that we went to see. The flat that sat behind the bolted door at the top of three steep concrete flights of stairs in a musty stairwell. The flat that was tiny and provided no way of leaving alone with a toddler and a buggy and my mind all at once. We walked around the entire space in thirty seconds and all I could feel was that it would be awful, like caging a beautiful bird (Beans) in a rusted cage in a room with no light and no breeze and no life. No.

We were put under pressure. We were told that we had no other options, that we had to live there. Somehow I ignored the smiles of those stood around us, not sure whether they were curling their lips at the delight of a bit of drama or because if we said no it would be theirs and I found an argument from deep inside my belly and I fought and I said something about standard of living and rights of children and we were given another seven days.

Seven days and six nights to resign ourselves to the fact that there was only one other property that we could even think about, the only one that would be accessible with a pushchair and a child and me. 168 hours to come to terms with not having choices and having to live in an area that we wouldn’t have dreamt of on a road that we would ordinarily avoid.

If I had written this a day or two ago I would have told you how the shards of glass, each one glinting in the bright sunlight, crunched and splintered under my feet as I made my way towards the front door. I would have told you that we viewed the property without Beans after feeling threatened and vulnerable the last time. I would have tried to paint a picture of the sights and the smell and the destruction that we were greeted by when the (half kicked through) front door slowly eased open and my eyes adjusted to what was waiting.

I would have shown you things like this

and this

and I would have perhaps asked why and how and what makes things this way. Not just for us but for anyone. Why? How? What? Who would live like that and just how?

I would have recounted how, as we stood in what once could have been a kitchen in the gloomy light that only boarded up windows can offer, the tiny baby girl, no more than a few months old and cradled in her mothers arms lifted her bight blue eyes to look at me before spreading her lips into a gummy grin. She stared at me and I stared back and a council official was talking about repairs and pipe work and central heating and all I could think was if we say yes to this house then this baby might not have a home either. Her or us? How does someone deal with that while round new eyes hold you in their gaze, questioning. Pleading? Understanding?

But it’s not last week and it’s not a few days ago and I need to do this. So rather than telling myself over and over that this is all my fault I need to tell myself over and over and over that I really do believe that everything happens for a reason and that maybe, just maybe, we can make this ok.

Rather than thinking about the stark reality

it’s the hidden gems and interesting secrets that are where the fun is waiting to be found.

It’s making things alright and happy and safe and normal, no matter what. Is finding ‘nothing special’ furniture in second hand shops and seeing their beauty and helping them to show it again.

It’s putting down roots and settling and being. No matter how many times I feel like I’ve tried to do that already and no matter how sad or guilty or responsible I feel. None of that is what matters and every single thought clouds my brain and brings back the mist.

This is our life and this will be our home and in it we will love and be loved and laugh and cry and grow and play.

And, I hope, get better.

The Morning After

3 Replies

Did you know that when you’re not pushing a pram or wrangling a toddler you are free to walk down the road holding hands with your husband? It was a revelation last night and we walked along quiet streets as the sun set. And then it was a revelation that the revelation had taken so long to be had. Our first evening, our first anything in fact, 100% child free since forever.

And it was lovely.

Once we got used to the fact that we were free (freeeeeeee!) we relaxed into our chairs, sipped our drinks, ordered our food (an absolute feast) and found we could hold a conversation without breaking into nursery rhymes or a chorus of no!

We ate, we drank, we discussed our mutual unease about Mr Tumble and our mutual desire to do this more often. The freedom thing, not the conversation about creepy Mr Tumble. I only checked my phone twice – just in case Beans needed us. She didn’t. Obviously. She slept better last night that she had in ages.

We walked back through dark streets at closing time and wondered how parents who still go out frequently manage it. Our bellies were full and our eyes we glassy and we asked how it’s possible to stay awake any longer as our buggy free fingers intertwined.

This morning, at 7:20am we bumped back down to earth and into our mummy/daddy roles. But that little taste of freedom and the reminder of what life used to be like – all be it will a much higher degree of tiredness and a much lower tolerance of alcohol – was so refreshing.

Like the tantalising world that first opened up to me when I made it through the door of my first club aged 15, last nights very quiet evening of food and drink has me itching for more. Maybe one day we will be the parents who can go out, drink, maybe even dance embarrassingly and still be able to transform for toddler fun the next morning. Maybe.

Is there a training program that we could go on?!

Clocking In

9 Replies

I am far from the authority on motherhood. Sure, I’ve been pregnant and given birth and all of that fun but everything that followed, i.e.: motherhood, caused me so much struggle, stress and pain that I need therapy. So no, I am far from good/perfect/competent/accomplished/knowledgeable. But I am writing this anyway, because…Well, because.

I’ve read a lot online recently, on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, about the ‘you don’t get a day off when you’re a mum but I demand one because it’s REALLYNOTFAIR’ thing. So much so in fact that I thought about it for long enough for me to sit here and type. Maybe I should get out more.

Even in my brief period of being a mummy there is one thing that I just get; it’s hard. It’s hard whether you’re happy or sad, rich or poor, young or old. That is the reality of being a parent. It’s often a thankless, brutal, unrelenting task that there is no escaping from. Even if you think you’re safe for five minutes in the cupboard under the stairs for some freaking peace and as many biscuits as you can stuff into your face, you will be found. There are no cheeky tea breaks, no standing idly at the photocopier ‘working’ while you stare out of the window of your grey office into greyer skies and daydream for ten minutes. You spend your days covered in snot/mud/jam/stickers/worse while bent at a backbreaking angle to make the all-important eye contact while you bark ‘no’ for the 549032409^th time in thirty minutes.

Let’s face it, if it was a job advertised in the back of a local paper no one would take it. Personally I would skip straight past it to the kittens needing homes column to aaaaaah and the singles column to giggle.

When I was born I became a daughter, a cousin, a niece and a granddaughter. In the last (almost) twenty seven years I have fulfilled the roles of sister, friend, girlfriend, bit of stuff, colleague, auntie, manager, other woman, fiancée, wife…yaddayadda.

Only two of the above had anything to do with jobs. All the others were work though. Man, they were work.

(Almost) two years ago I hoisted on a dress that I would otherwise never wear, shoes that I didn’t really like and held a bouquet awkwardly – honestly, is there any other way to hold a bouquet? It’s a bunch of flowers! When do we carry a bunch of flowers around except for on the day that we have 101 other things to think about and important things to do with our hands? How do you carry a bunch of flowers without looking slightly like you picked them from your neighbours’ garden when they weren’t looking on your way to the church? With muddy shoes and a slightly guilty look on your face…Anyway – I became a wife. I chose to marry the man that I call the husband. I chose to have a relationship with him and together we chose to become a family. That’s why I felt so sick and tired and pregnant at the time.

And then the wriggly thing in my tummy made a break for freedom and we became mummy and daddy. Titles that come with responsibility, duty, love, agony and shitty nappies. But is it a job? I don’t think so. Does it annoy me, admittedly irrationally, when people get stuck on the good old ‘no pay, no privileges, no respect, I demand a day off like all the nine to five-rs that get two a week. TWO. What I could do with two days…’ thing? Hell yeah. Maybe it’s just my PMT, but still.

I never, ever get a ‘day off’ from being a friend/family member/human/wife, so why would I get a day off from being a mummy? I get time alone, sure, but I will always be a mummy. When the house is silent but for the warthoggy snores of my daughter and husband (so alike in so many gross ways) I’m there in case I’m needed. When I break out for something super fun and exciting (it’s usually a pint of milk. Contain yourselves) I’m still a mummy. When Beans grows up and leaves home and embarks on adventures I’m still a mummy. No, there’s no time off or sick days (unless the husband is feeling generous), there are no big, fat cash bonuses, no company car and very few thank yous. It’s hard work and rewarding and frustrating and super fun. But just like you have to work at marriage and relationships and wondering if you can pull off those turquoise skinny jeans without looking try hard and life there isn’t the room for pleas of a day off or a pay rise. Because that’s not what it’s all about.

*jumps down off high horse and inhales a bar of chocolate*

Clara Unravelled

Motherhood, mental health and everything else

Category Archives: family

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