The Ironies of being a mum

In recent days I've realised that the tide has just turned and now that my children are aged 2 and 3, being home with them and working part time has got massive advantages rather than chronic exhaustion-fulled disadvantages. 

It does seem ironic that all mothers have to be the one to take a period of time off work / normal life to look after their newborn babies at the period when newborn babies by nature are completely impossible.  New fathers are probably uniform in their 'I can't do anything, I don't have boobs' approach and leave the work largely to their knarly stressed, exhausted, pissed off, leaking milk squirting other halves.  The men tootle off to work, muttering about a 'report' that has to be in by 9am, and hop onto the train / bus with a latte in hand, swinging their leather valise from the other.  We all know they are DELIGHTED to be out of the house with 9 hours to themselves without the sound of a baby screaming it's head off every 2 hours. 

 But it's so unfair that at 6, 9, 11 or 12 months, just as the mother has decided to to go back to work, babies start to settle down and behave more like the sweet things you see in TV ads.  All gurgly and sweet and smelling like roses and peaches and cream.  But too bad, we have to go back to work and it's the nursery or child minder who gets to enjoy the sweet smelling baby, have cuddles and watch it's flourishing small steps and progress towards major milestones.  

Anyone how has read my past blog posts will know that having worked for, let us just say, someone with limited people skills in a very unsexy industry ("a cherry picker has fallen over, can you do some crisis management on that please before the press gets onto it" etc etc) there was no chance I'd go back to my previous job.  Going on mat leave the first time is in my experience, 60% exhaustion and 40% boredom.  Going on mat leave again within 6 months of coming off mat leave takes the ratio to 90% exhaustion and 10% boredom.  It takes the spark out of what should be rights be a sparky precious time.

But anyhow, I'm through it now - my children are cognisant, verbal, walking, running, jumping, hilariously good humoured, naughty little people, who most importantly of all, completely adore each other.  When I ask them to do something, the older one actually does it.  (The little one runs off screaming with giggles).  If I say I need to count to three, by 1, the older one has stopped whatever he was doing / come to me / done what I had been asking him to do.  The younger one admittedly runs the other way laughing and tries to hide behind the nearest tree/curtains/bed/sofa but I had a major breakthrough this morning when on '1', he stopped and sat still. So, for anyone who is so frustrated with their toddler or baby that they want to call Cry-sis (I got close a good few times) rest assured that it is just a PHASE.  All children go through it and they all come good in the end.  Just rest up and build up a good archive of blackmail photos to use when they turn 14/15 and we descend back into never ending negotiations which are harder to resolve this time around because frankly a toddler will do anything for a lollipop, but I'm not sure it will have the same sway when your son is 6 foot 2.