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Sobbing is Self Care

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I grab my coat and move with my back to the rest of the diners, unwilling to draw attention to my movement as I leave the restaurant. I walk into the adjacent garden centre, down the path, past the perennials and shrubs, away from onlookers or the hardier plant-browsers.

I reach the end of the path, towards a cold blue sky, lush green rolling hills, a wintry landscape that is beautiful and Not. Enough.

With two hands, I raise my fur-trimmed hood over my head, burying my face in its cosy warmth. Hiding from the world, from the distress within. Trying to lose myself in a hug from my hood. I feel like a kid lost in the playground, hiding from the bullies, fists over my mouth, scared, alone.

I crumple my face, willing myself to hold it together, but this landscape gives me space, gives me permission to be real, honest, true and tears well up in my eyes and they pour down my face in blotchy welts as my mouth screws up in a ugly crying.

I sob, my shoulders heave, I am crying not quite in public.

Too tired to hold them back anymore…

No One Thing

If you asked me why I was crying, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Not in so many words. There was no single thing that tipped me over. No angry, annoyed or frustrated outburst, no stubborn refusal, nothing deliberate or unkind that I could finger as the tipping point.

Somehow this Sunday, this final day of half-term slid away from me this morning, and my mental plan to go for a long stomp in the glorious sunshine got lost in getting dressed and doing things (I can’t tell you what, I don’t even know) and before I knew it, it was 11am and too late to go out before lunch. So I was already fuming a little as we drove here. Angry that I had been up since 7am and had done nothing.

Not nothing – you know how it is – but nothing to fill my bucket.

When we got here, already a little tense, the children whined a little, wriggled a little. Bubbles didn’t like the books the restaurant had to read – and we (or she) hadn’t bought anything else. She complained about the chicken, then the broccoli. He complained that the roast potato wasn’t crispy. I ate my salmon salad. They ate most of it and didn’t spill their drink.

Yet somehow, something or things chipped away at my happiness bucket until it was empty. Achingly, desperately, hollowly empty.

I had bitten my bottom lip half way through, as they continued to poke their food. I had turned away, tried to distance myself, tried to breathe, to focus on the view, staring at it, hoping the hills would drip cheer into my bucket. Hoping that my obvious unhappiness would change the state of play, or at least just get through it intact.

But it wasn’t to be… And when it all became too much, I slid out of there to cry out sight.

Are You Okay Mummy?

Some minutes later, I hear the patter of their feet, running down the path, growing louder, coming in my direction. My tears are not yet done, but the urgent tidal wave of distress has ebbed a little.

  • “Are you okay Mummy?” asks Bubbles curiously
  • “Not really” I answer truthfully
  • “Oh” she says, disappointed, unclear what to do next
  • “Let’s go play” she suggests to Nibbles

My shoulders sag a little lower.

There’s A Hole In My Bucket

If my happiness is a bucket of water, there are things that fill the bucket and things that drain it. And its clear to me that I haven’t been filling it fast enough to cope with the holes that riddle the metal and leak drips and streams from it.

Andy comes and gives me a hug and somehow his kindness touches my soul and more tears come out and I sob that I just wanted a nice meal out and why can’t we just enjoy a meal out when I don’t and. and. and have to cook and. and. and the kids play and are kind and. and. and… when did life become so hard?

He doesn’t answer, because there are no answers. Because sometimes all I need is to know that he is here and he cares.

We go for a walk, where I am the sullen reluctant one. Nibbles holds my hand and that slight touch, that connection helps me remember that sometimes my bucket is full and overflowing, even if now is clearly NOT one of those times.

  • “Is your bucket is full yet?” asks Nibbles
  • I laugh, a little cynically. “About a quarter” I say, more graciously, knowing it is nearer 10%

Do What Needs To Be Done

There’s a parenting mantra about doing what needs to be done – to feed your kids, change their nappies, get sleep, to get through the day. But we need to ensure that on that list is the things we need to do for US.  To fill our buckets. To notice when they are dangerously low.

And if they become empty, to deal with that feeling too.

Sometimes sobbing is the best self-care.

A chance to express how hard parenting can be, a chance to be honest about how strong you are in this moment now, a chance to let go of the pain and let it out.

Because being strong, pretending to have your sh*t together all the time, that’s what can break you.

So go on, have a sob on me.

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Siblings Are Sophie’s Choice

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As I walk away with Nibbles, a hollow feeling invades me. It starts small, in an ignorable way, but with every step it grows, louder and more insistent until it’s almost painful.

What Have I Done?

It is the first day of the new term and as capable and organised as I am, I cannot physically be in two places at once. Yet Bubbles starts at junior school today, Nibbles is at infant school and the schools are half a mile apart.

I have abandoned Bubbles in the playground with the hurried consent of another mum.

Abandoned

I have let my “never be late” religion (if you’ve read the book, you’ll know) override the sort of mum I want to be to Bubbles.

I want to be stood with her.  I want to hold her hand and look into her eyes and embed the “it will be okay” thought that sits on the tip of my tongue (perhaps I need to hear that more than she does).

My legs feel like lead. As if every step towards Nibbles being on-time is a betrayal of my daughter. As if I am putting him first, that his needs are more important, demonstrating a blatant form of (blasphemy coming) “favouritism”.

I want to turn back. My gut screams “turn back” in order to untwist the knots within it. I almost turn back. Not just once, but a few strides later, then again as I wrestle with the blisters between my actions and my conscience. I tell Nibbles that I have made the wrong choice, but he reminds me “we don’t want to be late” and I heed his palliative words.

With one of me, and two of them, I cannot be there for both of them at every single event.

Sophie’s Choice

I remember when we’d first adopted the children, and Andy had gone back to work.  Whenever we left the house, I’d be faced with impossible choices, created by the unsafe limbo between the car seats and the shopping trolley, or the car seats and the front door.

I would unbuckle my strap, and get out of the driver’s door.  And open the door nearest the pavement and ask myself – who do I unstrap first?

  • In the car seat, strapped in tight, they were safe and secure.
  • In the hallway, they were safe(ish) and secure.
  • In between those places, in the seconds it took to unload the shopping or their sibling, they were at the mercy of some child-snatcher (or their birth family) who might swoop down the second my back was turned and steal them

Which One Would I Pick?

Whichever child I picked, what did that say about me?

For one would be held tight in the loving arms of their mother and the other one left abandoned in the car, with the door open, the car unlocked, vulnerable and defenceless.

Did I pick Nibbles because at least Bubbles could scream loudly and kick up a fuss that I could understand?  Or because he was youngest?

Or did I pick Bubbles because she was more confident on her feet and could be left to toddle up the path on her own, so I could look after Nibbles who needed me more, whilst effectively abandoning a two-year-old to a solid stone walk-of-death?

The Choice Haunted Me EveryWhere

  • Which child to pick out of the bath first, whilst leaving the other to drown?
  • Which child’s nappy to change first, when they sychronised their poo-xplosions, thus leaving the other child swimming in their own filth?
  • Which child to carry to the safety of the car whilst the other walked out, unsupervised, in front of a two-tonne lorry?
  • Which child’s plate of food to pass first whilst delaying the other for a few seconds of screaming, bawling, “I am starving” distress?
  • Which child to run to first if they played piley-on in the park and both hurt themselves, whilst trying in vain to wrap myself around both and “there there” them in equal measure?
  • If both screamed in different rooms at the same time, who did I run to first?

And everytime I chose I would ask myself if I had chosen that child too often already, if they had already won the “favourite” crown from their sibling, if Bubbles had picked up on the disparity with her observation of every minute detail of my barely adequate parenting.

Like she did with “maybe”. Informing me one day that it never meant “yes” and it always meant “no” and I knew then that she would pick up on every single thing I said and did.

Why is it so hard?

I Denied My Needs As Her Mum

Yet was it really Bubbles that needed me on her first day at school?  I worried she might get upset, that she might be scared, that she might need me. And I let those fears gnaw at me all day after I failed to turn back.

She was smiling and happy at the end of the day, excitedly sharing her day, liking her new teacher (because she rides an electric bike to school) and delighted with her lunchboxes with notes from mummy saying “I love you, have fun xx” and a host of (nutritious) food she loves.

Maybe I’m not ready to let her go. To let her grow up. To let her not need me anymore.

The truth is that I wanted to be stood beside my little girl. To be there for her. To squeeze her hand and let her know that she mattered to me more than a late mark. I am ashamed now of my order of precedent – that an unblemished record of zero late marks made to choose to leave her on that first day.

I will never have that chance again. To be there with her, to stand alongside her proudly as her mum.

I feel bad because I denied what I truly wanted to do. I wanted to turn back. I wanted to recognise my mistake and act on it. To show her (and him) that when I make mistakes, I mend them. But I didn’t.

Why?

Because I didn’t want the grown-ups, who had already seen me leave, watch me come back, as if Bubbles isn’t strong and brave enough to be left alone.  I worried more that the mums and days would think of me if I turned around than what my daughter thought of me. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Never Again

If I had that day again, I would go back. Even just for a few seconds. Just until I was certain she was okay, to let her make the decision, to let her grow at her own pace.

When I get that feeling that I’ve chosen badly, or wish something was different, I will do what I can, as soon as I can to change that decision and mend it. There and then. I will show my children that I am fallible, human, that I don’t know everything and don’t always get things right, and I will show them how to change their mind and learn. Regardless of what anyone else thinks or says or mumbles to others under their breath.

For I didn’t deny her needs that day.  I denied mine.

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Dear Children On Our Fourth Birthday

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Dear Nibbles and Bubbles,

How can I forget the day we finally laid you down to sleep, in cots built months ago that had lain achingly empty?  You’d bounced in them but tonight you would sleep in them for the first time.

A Forever Family  At Last

You watched TV in your PJs then we carried you upstairs. Daddy gave Nibbles his bottle, we kissed your foreheads, turned out the light, slipped out your door and stood in the hall, smiling and pulling silent faces as we waited…

You slept.

Daddy and I grinned at each other and tiptoed downstairs, desperate not to wake you.

We Had Made It

After all the disappointments and struggles, finally we were a family. We could barely believe that we’d made it, that we were now parents, that you were our children.  It didn’t seem real.

How tiny, how precious you were, marvellous in every detail.  Yet we were a little frightened by what we had done.  We had no idea how to be parents. There’d be time to work it out.

Except there wasn’t because two hours later Nibbles woke, cried, screamed and we tried everything: soothing, stroking, cooing, milk, rocking, jigging, hugging, more milk until Nibbles, you found a spot, half-way down the stairs in Daddy’s arms and finally gave into how very tired you were.

A New World

Those first few months, learning how to be your mummy, were the hardest months of my life. I had to learn everything, from how to read to you, play with you, praise you, hold you without dropping you, feed you, cook the right foods, prepare your bottles, bathe you, change your nappies, recognise that John Wayne walk before your nappy burst and get you dressed as your wriggled and writhed. I had to learn to cope with too little sleep and keep an ever watchful eye on you in case you fell, tripped, slipped, choked or ran into the road.

I kept waking up bleary eyed, putting one faltering step in front of the other as a Goldilocks mum: sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold and sometimes, miraculously, just right.

But as exhausting as it was adopting you is the best thing I’ve ever done.

It Goes So Fast

There’s been so much change in these four years:  you started mostly helpless and dependent on us, toddling, muttering words that were difficult to understand (chibley? what’s a chibley?), needing help with everything. I ached from lifting you so much, until my lifting-and-carry-little-angels muscles developed (not the technical term).

Now look at you.  Two amazingly independent, loving children with strong wills and personalities that shine. You love school and reading, you populate imaginary landscapes with dragons, superheroes and princesses in stories you build as you play.  You do your bit around the house, getting breakfast ready and helping sort out and fold the laundry, always keen to mend things (even Daddy’s motorbike) by bashing it with a hammer.

Moments To Make Me Glow

The last four years have been packed with firsts, for all of us.  From that first unsteady walk up the road, where you sat down and I nearly tripped over you and I hadn’t a clue what to do, until you could walk to nursery (with stops), then a few miles, and last year when you climbed up a mountain in the Lake District, aged just five and four.

Do you remember how you learned to twist your socks on so they sat just right?  Trying again and again for weeks, as I patiently helped and advised you (‘stop splaying your toes’), occasionally helping (aka doing it for you) when you found it too frustrating or time/ my patience ran out.

Until one day, without fanfare or ceremony, there was no struggle, no tears, no huffed “CAN’T”s and we forgot how hard it is to wrestle a sock on and moved onto the next skill to master.

When you get it right, when the socks slides on, when you reach the end of a long walk, when your letters are neat and perfect, when you read a whole sentence without stumbling, the look on your face makes me melt.  I am so proud of you both, for all that you have achieved already in your short lives (#glowmo).

Firsts and Lasts

Remember Bubbles, last summer when Daddy and I were busy disagreeing how best to help you learn to ride your bike and you simply powered off and did it all by yourself, silencing our debate? I cheered, high-fived, hugged you, shed a tear and then filmed it again.  I couldn’t have been prouder if you’d just won the Tour de France.

This week Nibbles, you proudly raced in to declare that you were ‘dry again!’ and I delighted in the your reaction and praised you for being so grown up, and we threw your last nappy away to great fanfare with party poppers.  And how now you’re getting dressed every morning, fending off my offers of help with an insistent “I can do it by my own“.

So Much More..

Our lives are sprinkled with more, more shouting sometimes, but lots, lots more laughter. There are giggles, tickles and silliness (and yes, sometimes that silliness drives us bonkers) with your homemade jokes and pranks.

Every day you say things that delight us and make us laugh, like at the wildlife park this weekend, when Nibbles asked:

  • “Can we see the cannibals, mummy?”
  • “Do you mean the camels?”
  • “Yes, the caramels, let’s go”

And who can remember our first trip to the zoo when Nibbles asked if he could see ogres?  How can I not swoon slightly at these surreal and imaginative conversations we have, that I note down and laugh at for months or years to come?

Our BC and AC Life

When you came into our lives, when you completed our family, things changed more than I might ever have imagined.  It was not ‘just us, with two kids’.  Because in adding two children, ‘us’ changed forever.

Yesterday I swam.  Grown-up swimming.  Up and down, up and down.  Quiet, peaceful.  I could hear my breath, the water, my thoughts.

But it wasn’t much fun.

Not like when we go to the pool: when it’s a chaotic, noisy, crowded adventure. When we giggle and jump waves and splash, and queue for our turn down the slide, then scoot down at breakneck speed until we are breathless with delight and need another pee.  For all the noise and chaos, I prefer life as a mad, giggling, frustrating adventure that reminds me what its like to feel truly and breathlessly alive.

I Love Being Your Mummy

Being your mummy is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.  Utterly unpredictable. Iced with an unconditional love for you both that takes bring frequent tears to my eyes.

Being your mummy is a rollercoaster that whips my hair, flushes my cheeks and leaves me struggling to keep up, but I wouldn’t give it up for all the Prosecco in Italy.

Being your mummy has been so much more than I ever expected.

Nibbles and Bubbles, here’s to all the adventures ahead. Here’s to the tears of pride that will fall, to the smiles we will share, the jokes that make us laugh and groan, to the hugs and kisses, the scraped knees and the broken hearts. Here’s to helping you grow and letting you go, to the firsts and lasts yet to come. Here’s to more unforgettable memories. Here’s to more laughter, more love, more joy.

Thank you for being my amazing, adorable, incredible children.

I love you, so much.

Your Mummy

(the woman previously known as Emma)

pass the tissues.

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Shrunk In A Hot Wash

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I am imprisoned.  Trapped in a tiny triangle of land, no more than a mile on the longest side.  The corners are my house, school/ nursery and the supermarket.

My Life Has Shrunk

My days involve walking from home to school/ nursery, and back again.  Twice a week, I go beyond that short line with a trip to the supermarket for more cucumber and washing powder, then it’s back to school again.  Five days a week, three times a day, I walk along the same route, and it’s a miracle there isn’t a dip in the pavement where I’ve worn it thin.

Whilst the journey rarely varies, every day it’s different, due to the inventive minds of my children. Yesterday we all rode invisible unicorns to school until mine became lame and couldn’t gallop any more (I was too tired to keep up the pace).

I Have Shrunk

But this house-school-supermarket-arrest preys on my mind – I fear I’ll be infected with village mentality, because this patch of land is an island of little significance in the ‘grand scheme of things’ whose centre (in the UK) is the chaotic metropolis of London.

This tract of land is both nothing (a teeny dot on a map) and everything (my entire universe) and my mind struggles with that paradox.

Every so often I strap the kids into the car and make it all the way across town, celebrating that I have escaped the well-worn rut that is my life. Over the invisible fence by – another mile.  Woo hoo!  I feel like a different woman to the chemical engineer who delivered complex training to big name companies in places like Oslo, Lisbon, Kalamazoo and Dublin.

A New Richness

It’s over a decade since Andy and I moved into this street.  Ten years of nodding or saying hello and that was the sum of our acquaintance with the people in this street.

Yet this repetition creates a richness, a new depth to my experience.  My neighbourhood has come alive again.  I notice the subtle changes from month to month: where the snowdrops grow, the slipperiest corner to avoid if the ground is icy, where the cat with no tail lives and which gates hide barking dogs.

Memories Ingrained in the Pavement

“That’s a fire station” declared Nibbles confidently one morning.  As I look to where he’s pointing, I admit that the red double garage looks a bit like a fire station.  Now I can’t walk past without smiling at the memory.  Over there’s a hole where  Nibbles and Bubbles stuffed all the twigs they could find until it was fit to bursting and I had to convince them to find another.  Here’s the spot they lay down protesting they couldn’t walk another step.

But it’s more than just familiarity and memories.  There are new faces, new names, new connections.  Its the people who bring it this triangle to life.

People Make a Neighbourhood

There’s grandma Dee in her downstairs flat.  We wave to Dee, and talk to her if the window is open, or mime shivering when the weather is cold.  Sometimes we see her at the bus stop on her way to the shops, or sneak a peek at the new wallpaper in her lounge once she has her flat redecorated.  Once she invited me in and we talked about our families.

There’s a couple who sit on their front step with steaming cups of tea and cigarettes.  One day, when we saw them both on the way to nursery and on the way back, Nibbles stated with wide-eyed astonishment “they’re still there!” I laughed and suggested that they had maybe gone inside in the interim.

Karl tells us about his model airplanes, sharing tales of broken wings or tail pieces and things I know nothing about, with his friendly wagging dog who is stocky and almost never jumps up. When the kids aren’t with me, we talk about his legs and the son he hasn’t heard from in over a decade.

Lydia once shouted at Nibbles for treading on the pebbles on her drive (and I frowned with a harrumph and a ‘what’s her problem?’).  But since her initial outburst, she softened.  Now she waves, remarks how well behaved the children are, as she tends the flowers in her pots and dusts her china.

New Roots

For years I just lived here.  My house is here.  That was about it.  I introduced myself to my neighbours when I moved in, or they did, then promptly forgot their names.

But the children kept asking “what he called?” about the man next door, until I gave in and asked (on their behalf). He’s Charlie, but the children call him “Mr Charlie” which gives a sense of grandeur and respect I really like. Until they shout and scream “Mr Charlie” incessantly through the window at him as he’s leaving his house, which I like a lot less.

And in peopling the walk, I have found new roots, a new sense of belonging, a new sense of camaraderie with the streets in which I live and walk.

Get To Know Your Neighbours

Try it.  Walk to the shop every day to get a paper or a pint of milk, and you’ll discover a whole new world, right on your doorstep.  Full of stories, people, smiles, friendships and community.  Stop once in a while and say more than just “hello” and you can unearth stories that will stay with you for a lifetime.

I am so glad I have my children, because through them, I have found a new me.  A connected me.  A me with roots.  Something I haven’t felt since I was a child myself, falling into the pond at Mr Moon’s house and playing with the Blocks next door.

In shrinking the fibres of my life in a hot wash, I have found a new warmth, a new hygge that was here all along.  A felted mesh of memories, imbued with cosy familiarity, inhabited by people I know.  Who knew that shrinking could be so enriching?

 

 

 

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