He comes home from one job, eats then leaves for the next. He was furloughed then laid off. He now has 3 different jobs. I have 2 jobs.
Monday to Wednesday I am myself. I go out to work, I come home and forget work. I become mummy, house keeper, cook, educator.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday I am mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy. That’s it! Just mummy. She is 2 and I am her world.
I know I am meant to tell you she is my world. I can not. I can however say…..
I am fed up to the back teeth of Mr bloody tumble. I would rather stick pins in my eyes than once again have to deal with the mess of glitter and glue and paint and stickers that get stuck on everything apart from what they are meant to be stuck on.
“Bake with your baby”
“Sing songs with your baby”
“It’s the best job in the world”
What!? Listening to her screaming “I want up” “I want tubbies on” “I want my pink cup” is the best job in the world is it???
Right that’s it! We’re going out!
But then it hits me like a tone of bricks. We are in Tier 4! We can not go out! We can not anywhere because we might catch it then die or, unbeknown to us, pass it on to somebody else and then they will die!
JESUS! I feel like I’m suffocating!
I can’t breathe. I want him to feel how I am feeling.
I am so worn out from being mummy, mummy, mummy that I want to close my eyes right here, right now!
I want to lay my head down and close my eyes and sleep for 100 years!
He is home for his lunch. I quickly run up the stairs and get into bed. Head on pillow, quilt right up to my ear.
“I’m going in 5 minutes”
“I don’t give a shit! I’ll take one minute if that’s the only opportunity I get to be alone!”
Now she’s coming up the stairs! My heart is pounding and the panic sets in again. Am I afraid of my own child? “Mummy? What your doin” “mummy, play” “mummy, I found you!”
I was not aware that we were playing hide and seek. How has my sheer desperation to hide away become a game? Dam! I should have sat on the loo instead! Then again, I can’t remember the last time I went there alone!
What I wouldn’t give right now to be invisible!
I just want to be alone. That’s all I want. Just. Leave. Me. Alone. PLEASE!!!! Please God make this child take a nap or, make his shift be cancelled or just make me invisible. Christ! You made blind men see! Is invisibility so difficult?
It’s only Friday. I still have Saturday and Sunday to get through. I can’t do it. I honestly just can’t do it. Please god just give me the strength to get through till Monday.
I never really prayed until till I became a mother. Now I pray on a daily. Multiple times!
He’s gone and I’m back on my hands and knees cleaning up another accident. Only it wasn’t an accident was it? You threw it on the floor because it was a strawberry yogurt and not a raspberry yogurt.
“Right! Time out!”
Truth is, time out is more exhausting than just cleaning it up and getting you the raspberry yogurt. I don’t have the physical energy to carry you up the stairs to your cot for said time out and the time out spot we started out with, also became a game. So, time out is generally avoided at all costs.
Count down to 19.00hrs started at 06.30 when you decided we would get up. Roll on bedtime.
You are safe in your cot, sleeping. I am sat on the sofa, toys all around me. Dirty dishes stacked up in the kitchen.
My reward for getting through the day is having the TV to myself. I am flicking through every channel but there is nothing on. The telly is noisy and bright. I switch it off. I sit in the quiet darkness.
I….
I miss you!
I miss your sticky fingers pulling at my sweater.
I miss the way you spin around and around and I miss the little dance you do when you hear the music to your favourite song.
I miss you saying mummy!
Thank you god for making me a mummy. Please let us both wake up in the morning and continue to keep us safe. Amen.
P.S. God bless him too x