About a month or so ago, there was this weather event in Brisbane that grounded the city to an annoying halt. By weather event, I mean it didn’t stop bloody raining for a whole night and the next day. We weren’t dry but we were perfectly safe so I’m well aware that what I’m about to write falls into the first world problem category especially when many people were far from dry and not very safe.
This all happened on one of my typical “day off from work” days when I’m home with Charlie. By “home” I actually mean out of the house for as long as possible. I am a much better parent when we are out and about. I get itchy and a little bit crazy when at home with a nearly 4 year old. It was only after I started living with a toddler did I fully appreciate the term cabin fever. On this day it was more like cabin bloody delirium. I spent three hours playing matchbox cars.
This was after the obligatory play doh but before we built a tower out of Tupperware. Of course I could have gotten in the car and gone somewhere but just because I was going insane I wasn’t stupid. We then hit the board games which was a bit useless because a toddler has absolutely no care for rules. Just because we are past the point of wanting to chew on the dice, we aren’t yet at an age where we can sit around the family table with a board game and mugs of hot chocolate. #Life goals.
Did I mention we don’t have a coffee machine?
So this was all happening without coffee.
No Netflix either. Kidding. Not really.
And no day sleep either. The weather turns to hell in a hand basket the day I’m home ALL DAY with a non napping child.
By 1pm I was looking for my mother of the year crown. By 2pm I needed a Bex and a lie down.
Clearly I parent better when it’s all blue skies.
At some point I was trying to explain the concept of Snakes and Ladders to Charlie when I got the inspiration to come up with my own version. I thought I would then share with you my own version of Snakes and Ladders. Or rather “the ups and downs of parenting a toddler”. Thinking of getting it patented.
The next day the skies had cleared and so had my mind. I then of course had to go to work and by 10am I was wishing I was at home with my child.
I know it is perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed by the relentlessness of parenting and it is a feeling you fear will never end. These are the moments that I feel even worse because I think I should be doing more, playing more, crafting more, building more. I know I can’t love more than what I do but there is real anxiety in never being enough. These moments though, they are tiny. Thankfully, for all my fears and anxieties I think we are doing just fine.
Motherhood doesn’t define me, but it is the best part of me.
Next time we’ll try Monopoly.
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