The Motherhood Maze

A visit last week to Blenheim Palace maze reminded me that motherhood is like being in a maze. Without overstretching the metaphor there are several similarities.

Firstly you can be surrounded by people and yet feel totally alone. Sometimes in a room of mothers I do feel they're all on the other side of the hedge from me.

Secondly there is an overwhelming sense that many avenues are now blocked off. I know that you can carry on as before even with a child, there are people that put a baby in a rucksack and climb machu picchu etc etc. However, these people are in the minority. Similarly, I have total respect for mothers who because of their job or hobby or ambition are able to go off and do something for themselves and leave their children for a period of time but I couldn't do it. (I wish I could!). Even once you're married it's difficult to say 'i'm going to do what I want or need to do' if it would be detrimental to the needs or wants of your partner but once you have a child this is magnified.

Thirdly you can feel so often that you have made a wrong turn in your day to day child-rearing or that you are going in circles.

And another thing with mazes is that you work so hard to find the middle and then if you get there ...so what? You feel great for a few minutes but then you just have to try and find your way back out again.

Sick-husband-syndrome

John is ill. He's had some kind of stomach bug now for about 7 days. That's 7 days of lying in bed and moaning (not in a good way either). 7 days of barely eating and 7 days of barely speaking to me or Molly.

In the meantime I've reverted to toddler behaviour: I have great bursts of sympathy followed by much sulking. Molly is confused but I find she asks pertinent questions like 'why won't he take his medicine?' and 'does he need Dr Brown Bear?'.

At least he's accepted (finally) that hot water bottles aren't some evil attempt by me to move him closer to taking (whisper it) "medicine" but might in actual fact help.

How patient am I ? I think tomorrow I may find out. It's Molly's birthday and all the grandparents are here. John is staying in bed and I'm doing battle alone on the most stressful day of the year. Meanwhile i'm off for a sulk.

Brunch

John's birthday today and he's in bed ill rather than come down and face the breakfast battleground.

Breakfast is the hardest meal in our house. Every morning I have a secret fear that Supernanny is going to burst through the front door and take one look at our breakfast routine (Molly's three half-eaten breakfasts; the temper tantrums; the 99 times I have to jump up and fetch something for Molly and best of all the way that every day just as I take my first bite of toast she says "Mummy i've pooed") and give me a good telling off about how to manage breakfast. The truth is that I'm not a morning person and I find confrontation this early in the day very difficult so we've just given up really...

You know you're getting old when your greatest fantasy is brunch with Evan Davis. Everyday I switch on the Today programme and hear his voice and drift away into a reverie about sitting in a smart London restaurant having brunch whilst an interesting and educated man talks to me about current affairs.

In reality he's probably got children too so it would still end up being a conversation about nits.

I've run out....

Molly plays a game at the playground where she's running an icecream shop that only sells Strawberry ice-cream. In answer to requests for any other flavour she says: 'it's-run-out'.

That's how I feel lately 'itsrunout'. I'm not sure exactly what's runout but some or all of the following:

Ability to bite my tongue in front of my MIL.

Patience with my sick husband.

Willingness to change Molly's pants who is still pooing in them after 10 weeks.

Laughing heartily when my parents tell me what is/was wrong with me. (This one ever since my counsellor told me my family was 'not-normal'.)

Putting up with bad smells in the bathroom.

Not spending any money to buy clothes/get my hair re-coloured.

Talking about nits with other mothers.

Whatever it is that's run out I need to get it back pronto because most of these things are going to carry on whether or not I want them to.

Wee-sit

A landmark day today... Long awaited, long dreaded.

I was that mother crawling through the playbarn tunnel to mop up a pool of wee.

Why oh why didn't I put her in the horrible-pink-disney-theme pull-ups?

Why oh why didn't I force her onto the toilet even though she said she didn't need it?

Why just at the moment when (for the first time ever) a yummy-mummy spoke to me and I could have made a friend did my child announce in a penetrating voice that reached the farthest reaches of the garden centre 'Mummy i've had a h-accident'.

Why did yummy-mummy's child crawl through it two seconds before I got there?

Why were there only 3 tissues in my handback (not mansized either) so that i was forced to wipe up the rest with the leg of my own jeans whilst holding back a queue of children desperate to slide through it ?

This isn't how it was supposed to be.