There is a strange place in the Universe - not unlike the Twilight Zone (but without the scary monsters). It is a place mothers (or fathers for that matter) don’t visit very often. It is an exciting, delicious, almost forbidden place, that we long for guiltily, and take in small doses when we can get it, like expensive wine. It’s … a day off work, WITHOUT KIDS!
By pure chance (or as it turns out, good luck) I’ve had a few weeks in between finishing up working part-time and starting working full-time, where some of my days off have coincided with my son’s daycare days.
Now once upon a time I would have kept my child at home with me, but these days I justify sending him, mumbling something about the high cost of care, which we’d have to fork out anyway, and that he enjoys seeing “all of his friends”.
But am I really wanting kid-free time? I think I have to admit, yes.
I really have come a long way from being a mother who couldn’t be without my baby at all.
A few days after I gave birth I was having a blood transfusion (don’t ask, or see my post under ‘birth stories’ for gruesome account) and my baby was on the other side of the room crying his lungs out. I couldn’t reach him, on account of being tied up to the transfusion. I kept buzzing the midwives and they kept ignoring me. And I was getting really upset.
So eventually I stretched so far that the IV nearly popped out of my arm and I somehow managed to grab his little crib with the other arm. I swept him up in a smother of cuddles and he was perfectly calm again. By the time the midwives arrived my baby was fine. But I, of course, was a mess.
Well that incident kind of became a bit of a metaphor for my parenting, for at least the first two years. The IV took different forms - work and other commitments - but the result was always the same - being away from my baby too long was very upsetting.
Now, 3.5 years later, I guess the IV has largely been removed from my vein and those four units of B positive blood (Be positive….I am! Get it?) have finally done their job. But I still feel a little jab every now and then, such as when my increasingly articulate child said to me the other day: “I’ve got a brilliant idea! How about I won’t go to preschool and you don’t go to work?!” And there was this one (where do they get these things from?): “Mummy, I want you to spend time with me!”
Yet, I find as my child grows, the gulf between kid and non-kid days, gets larger.
Let’s compare yesterday (kid) and today (non-kid) for example.
Yesterday: Got up; gave son milk; coaxed son into eating breakfast; washed soiled sheets; watched Ghostbusters; played with pipe cleaners; went to shops: bought Ghostbusters soundtrack, more pipe cleaners, foam balls and eyes to use for heads for pipe-cleaner men; bought milkshake that landed on floor; bought pretzel; looked in toy shop, picked up some discounted kids’ clothes for next season; came home; more pipe cleaners; went for walk - ended up piggybacking; cleaned up ‘accident’; mopped up bathroom after water incident; coaxed son into eating dinner; read four stories; he slept; great - time to myself - too tired; slept.
Today (the plan): Dad pops child off to preschool; have leisurely coffee while blogging; have bubble bath; pop down to hair salon and get cut, colour and blow dry (takes several hours - well it would want to at that price); have a spot of lunch with friends; pop back home; see another friend this afternoon; read novel; pick up son from preschool around five; for the rest of the day re-run yesterday from ‘more pipe cleaners….’ except the part where I am too tired to have time for myself. I’ll be so rejuvenated after my day off will probably go out for a jog (LOL).
So this, that is so remarkable to me, is actually the way some women live! Imagine that! Those ‘ladies who lunch’. But it would hardly be a delicious pleasure, or another Universe, if it were to happen everyday now, would it?
I’d better go now, I’ve got to get on with doing nothing.
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