I read a very reassuring post by another blogger that indeed it does get easier as the kids grow up. I thought I would document for my future self what exactly about now IS hard. So that, a) I can get it off my chest (!) and b) I can look back on it and remember we survived!
In no order of significance other than the order in which they spring to mind, the following are my very first world problems at this time:
1) Operating on little sleep - mostly interrupted sleep. So Sammy has good nights and bad nights - the bad nights are less than two hourly waking where he only settles with milk. William and Eddie rarely go through a night without one comforting each - whether it be a nightmare, or wetting the bed, or losing Froggy, or pillow too hot, or falling out of the bed, or hitting head on the bedhead, or monster eyes in the living room. Or, worse, they come through to our bed and get in - and both of us are too tired to take them back to their room (and the screaming that ensues as a result and therefore threatens to wake S or the other), BUT it means us not getting a proper sleep - so really we should just take them back to our bed. After these nights, Eddie is still often up between 5.30 and 6.00am and remember, E, doesn't watch tv - so Damien needs to get up or else E just jumps on us and generally annoys us in bed (pulling hair, pulling off the covers, talking or singing loudly right in your ear, or crying because he can't open the door to watch the garbage truck, or because the cat scratched him). W is better - he lies still beside us and cuddles AND he does tv.
2) Related to this is the agonising bedtime hour. Every evening the routine is the same - bath, dinner, dessert, teeth, stories and bed. But most nights there is protest at one or all of these events (oh, except dinner and dessert). E and W share a room which means they can keep each other awake and stir each other up. T always gets a second wind after dinner and even if he was sleepy after school he can quite easily rock on reading downstairs in his room until 10 o'clock - and often he wants to come lie with us to go to sleep and is now quite heavy for D to carry downstairs, so D often just lets him stay with me, and D sleeps downstairs, so during the night if W or E awake, I am the only adult in reach so I get less sleep, plus W and E now wake T as well who is in my room and this is a very long sentence and is making me tired just trying to finish it. But you get the gist of the exhaustion all this involves. In the middle of the night. Between or during Sammy feeds. We aim to get them into bed by 7pm and then to sleep shortly after that. It is getting marginally better as we get firmer about it (they get to go sleep on the balcony if they play up, and they hate that but it can take a few 'Outside!" to convince them we are serious about bedtime. If W or E sleep in the day - 7pm is a dream - as it is more likely 8 or 9pm, which makes daytime sleep (like they are having now allowing me to blog) a double edged sword - great NOW, but hell to pay tonight trying to get them to sleep.
3) THE. FIGHTING. Between mainly Eddie and William but T can also add to the mix with both of them if he is feeling recalcitrant. From the moment they wake up they are always borderline ready to fight over something - with one or both ending in high pitched screaming or crying as a result of physical injury inflicted. There are few moments where something is not going on unpleasantly between them. I don't always intervene but the sound is not conducive to peaceful anything. It sets my teeth on edge.
4) My yelling. So, add the top three points together, and then one other frustrating thing gets added to the mix (for example, T doesn't do what he knows to do and has been asked to do a few times by me already - like put his shoes in his shoebox OR S is having a hard time getting off to sleep so is crying in his cot (others may be able to ignore it but it is like nails on a chalkboard for a mother) OR D isn't home at the time he said he would be home OR the cat looks the wrong way at me (you get the picture)) and I start yelling about little things. It is a build up of everything but it all comes out in a ferocious way and I terrify the kids and I terrify myself. And then a moment later - I wonder how I got so worked up and then comes remorse and then self-pity and then the desire to eat chocolate and drink wine.
5) No time to take time. Everything I do is done as quickly as I can. Even conversations. There is no time to luxuriate over anything. There is so much that should be done, could be done, that if I take too long, I feel it is inefficient. I think this constant hurry/stress definitely reflects itself in stress of the children, particularly T.
6) Mornings are a battle against the clock - school starts at 8.45. D does the early shift with W and E, and often S is playing under the playgym at this time too - about 6am. I lie awake, horizontal, enjoying being horizontal - last time for many hours. I am up then about 6.30am - with the aim to be able to do piano practice with T at 7.30. So my breakfast had, coffee or two had, T woken, dressed, fed, bed made, teeth done. And lunches made. Gluten free lunches - so perhaps sushi rolled, or eggs boiled or fish fingers cooked ..... I SHOULD do all this in the evening - but honestly I am SO exhausted by 8pm I just don't have it in me. Mornings - I am awake any way with marginally more energy. So all this accomplished without either E or W being unduly assaulted by each other. Oh and giving S a feed and putting him to sleep. And unstacking dishwasher, thinking about what needs putting out for dinner. And doing all kindy/school forms or ensuring homework/library books/PE or swim bag in. This is why I often am still unshowered and in my pyjamas when I cross the road with T to school. Most mornings D is not around. Most mornings I have the nanny, thank goodness. She really manages E and W whilst I do T and S and the rest. She (E) will also perhaps fold washing, or tidy a room, or sweep sand out of T's bed, or change clothes on kids again after the fight over the tap outside, or give E excema medication or jumpstart my car if the battery has been flattened through kids playing with the electric doors. You know, normal nanny stuff. Most times I don't make piano by 7.30, but perhaps by just after 8. Which I think is better than nothing.
7) The days when I have all three littlies at home are days of counting down the hours until T comes home (having him in the mix lessons the arguments between E and W) and until D comes home or until E comes at 4pm. My goal on this day is to stay sane and for them all to be alive when T, D or E arrive. That's it. And those days I feel like I really want to go back to full time work. Any kind of work. Anything where I can take a shower in peace, go to the toilet without E helpfully trying to wipe my bottom, eat a snack without demands for more food from them, have a cup of tea or even better one that doesn't get cold and need microwaving, or even better than that, a cup of tea SOMEONE ELSE MAKES FOR ME. Oh come on Jane, get back to reality! I have bad moments on these days. When S is struggling to sleep and E continually wants to 'kiss' him or just be around me, noisily, when doing so means S cannot go to sleep and it is a neverending circle of E being frustrated because I am with S and S needing me because E won't leave us alone. And if E does leave us alone it is only moments until W or E or both are screaming in argument and once again I need to check for non-fatal wounds. On that note, I have THE best stocked medicine box of bandages and wound care medicines as a result.
8) Dinner time can be hard because of a) bad manners or b) just generally annoying each other. T, inexplicably, eats with such bad manners compared to William and even Eddie. What is that? Uses fingers as a matter of preference, turns his cutlery the wrong way to eat when he does use it, legs and elbows on the table or everywhere they shouldn't be, spills whatever he is eating on the table, himself every night. And if W and E and T are not greater than arms length seated away from each other - well there is going to be much pushing and shoving etc. This is alleviated by sitting at dinner table rather than counter so this happens as often as possible. Also the battle to keep them at the table until everyone has finished, and the threats thrown to achieve this. It is getting better, I will say this though.
9) Feeling like I have nothing left to give by the end of the day - to D or to T. I want to be able to sit with T after the littlies go to bed to do reader or to read to him - but I am just too exhausted. D does this. And I want to be able to relax and talk with D, but often I am in bed before the littlies get to sleep, and asleep not long after they are. I have always been a morning person, but now even more so. Evenings - I don't even take a shower or brush my teeth some nights - I know, yuck, but seriously I pass out. And then that feeling of remorse the next day when if I had put a load of washing on, or prepared the lunches, or done anything in the evening would mean it wouldn't need doing today!
10) Time to do the slow stuff. Like sit with William and do colouring. Like make sand castles with E at the fort. Like allow T to take as long as he wants at the piano or with his homework. Like go early to tennis lessons and have a hit with T. Like allow S to sleep on me whilst I rest in the daytime. Like have a long dinner with glass of wine with D without the bedtime pressure hanging over us. Time to file my nails not just clipper them (wondering when the hexagon look for nails is going to come back in?) Time to finish my book, leisurely - because it is so good I don't want to rush it. Time to teach T to tie his shoe laces. Time to teach W to do up a button. Time to thread cotton reel necklaces with E. Time to take time to make dinner not have to rush it. Time to bake unnecessary foods just because. Time to contact friends just for a chat not just logistics. Time to do things that take more than five minutes to do. Time to put on mascara and lipgloss before going out. Time to style my hair.
You know D and I say to ourselves. Doing anything with only one child is like doing it with joy and pleasure. Doing anything with two children just feels normal - not great but not bad. Doing anything with three children feels a little discomforting but quite manageable. Doing it with four is when it really gets tough.
So normally we divide and conquer - two children each. So I have to do all house chores or shopping whilst juggling two. D has to do mowing, trips to Bunnings, soccer games etc with two. When it is just two, we think ourselves lucky.
So yes, I am short/less tolerant of those parents who are 'exhausted' with two (often older) children. But I do get that whatever experience we have, we feel it genuinely. But the four plus children club - well it is a club. I met another lady who has four and she just said to me quietly - 'they' just don't get it (they being those with two or less children) and not to try and compare yourself. I didn't get it before S - now I know she is right.
It used to upset me, now it just cracks me up, that because I have a 'nanny' people think I must have it easy. I know as well, that some people think that if I let go of the things I think are important (like piano, and good table manners, and date nights with my husband, and exercise, and reading books to the kids at night, and restricting technology time) - my life would be easier. Indeed it would but I wouldn't be satisfied.
So don't get me wrong - all the above - I BROUGHT IT ALL ON MYSELF. It is all my choice. But sometimes, it does make me feel better to document, that yes, it is tough right now. And I hope I can keep this blog going to see, over the years, that a) it does get easier and b) it was all worthwhile.
Labels: Large Family