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My Friday: a thread brought to you by the conspiring forces of circumstance, children and illness.
So, it starts like a standard Saturday morning. Evie wakes for a feed at about 4am. She's just about asleep at 5ish when Darwin wakes up, ready to party. Evie and Mum hit the sack, Darwin and I attempt to sleep (read: wrestle) in his bed until 6am.
At 6 Darwin's light turns from blue to yellow, which tells him he can go downstairs, so he's up. I insist we get dressed first as it can take a small miracle to get Darwin back up to his room once he's out. It's like 4 degrees and I'm in a t-shirt. It matters to me you know this.
BUT Darwin refuses to wear jumpers because 'they make him feel different' (this is a common objection, immune to my arguments about the moral value of epistemic and personal revelations). I explain to Darwin that the jumper is warm and 'soft like a lamb'. So now Darwin is a lamb.
We go downstairs to get Darwin's 'big' (his morning bottle of milk, which he still insists on daily. It's big, thus the name). As Darwin is a lamb, he must lie in my lap as I bottle-feed him. The lamb will not lie still. The lamb also wants crumpets with peanut butter and jam.
By this stage, breakfast and play ensue in the normal way, with some lamb-like exceptions (lambs speak in a very squeaky tone). It's now 7:45 and Evie and Mum are still asleep. This is most unusual. Neither the lamb nor I are prepared for this kind of slumber.
The lamb needs his mum. I need proof of life. We also have family visiting at 8:30am. So I bring up some smashed avo on toast for Mum (yes, we rent), who is stirring, along with young Evie. Mum informs me she's in severe pain, and almost certainly has mastitis. Motherhood, right?
Now we're off to the races. Jenn and I try to work out how to manage a million commitments as she partly hallucinates feeding Evie (feeding on a blocked breast is very important, but also crazy painful). Guests roll in as we just manage to pull pants on.
The lamb is growing VERY tired and needs both fresh air and attention. However, it's cold and guests are here and Mum is sick, so the lamb must settle for puzzles and wrecking the entire house. Which he does with aplomb.
Evie is now asleep on my chest, showing she gives exactly zero fucks for the guests who came with the express goal of meeting and cuddling her. She will probably wake at first light on the fifth day.
Success! Evie wakes, guests get cuddles, leave. New challenge: I've got a public commitment this arvo. That's an imposition on a healthy partner. It's outright cruel on an ill one. So now I'm considering interviewing an author about her book with a child strapped on my chest.
So I message the author, who is totally chill about it all and permits me to bail altogether, which I absolutely don't want to do (I adored the book), but it's obviously the right move, and I pull the pin. BUT we still have to see more family, because the lamb needs to get out.
Into the car we go, with a now awake and grumpy newborn, an overtired and bored lamb and a world-weary mother who doesn't want to stay at home because of the aforementioned need to feed. The visit is lovely, everyone has a good time, but we leave a bit late for lamb's nap.
Darwin - no longer a lamb - howls half the way home because, as he tells us often, he is tired and wants blankie and blue (blue is his dummy. It's blue). Plan: Jenn to put him quickly to bed and going to get antibiotics. Matt to wake Evie from car and resettle in baby carrier.
Naturally, now Darwin is too tired to sleep. He howls and laughs and generally encourages us to pull our hair out. Jenn goes to the doctors, and I kneel next to the bed with a sleeping newborn on my chest, singing Darwin to sleep, which amazingly, works (at 3pm).
Jenn returns with antibiotics (though no repeats, because what primary caregiver doesn't have time to go back to the doctor in a week for a script that just about everyone knows she'll need?).
So, now I have 30 minutes to go get a birthday present for a party + pickup groceries. Then we have to wake Darwin or he'll be up until midnight. Thankfully, this is basically successful, but waking Darwin is like waking the dead.
But now, Evie is witching, so there's a whole new thing happening. Solution: get outdoors. Darwin is loaded into the pram, Evie the carrier, and we're off.
For 15 metres before it starts to rain.
Aaaand were back in the house!
For 15 metres before it starts to rain.
Aaaand were back in the house!
Now, we forgot to defrost meat this morning, so there's no way dinner will be ready for Darwin, so Jenn drives BACK to Coles (where I just was) to get some pasta pockets for him. Meanwhile, he gets to watch some Thomas whilst I cajole Evie to sleep.
Jenn returns and pretty much faints. Mastitis is an absolute beast of an infection. So she goes to shower and sleep, after feeding Evie once more. I wrestle Darwin away from the TV and unpack groceries whilst cooking his dinner and half playing a memory card game with him.
Now Darwin is eating dinner whilst I'm giving Evie a bath on the floor next to him (the baby bath is portable, very important for two kids). Evie is killing it right now. 10/10 chill baby. Darwin is eating pasta pockets like a bloody legend. Dad's heart rate is dropping.
BUT, just as Evie leaves the bath, Darwin needs more pasta pockets. You know, the ones Dad stress ate five minutes ago. So now I'm cooking more, whilst Evie is half nude on the cold floor and Darwin is barely keeping his cool. But more pasta is soon served and Evie is in her PJs.
Now it's up to check on Jenn, who has made it out of the shower like a fucking Spartan hero, and is now waxing and waning between unbearably hot and freezing. More drugs for Jenn and off to bed. Also, get Evie into the carrier so she can sleep. Now, onto Darwin.
Darwin will be skipping bath tonight, but there is still the Hurculean task of getting him to go upstairs. This is made more difficult by Evie shitting her pants through everything, then promptly falling asleep.
EVERYTHING
Now we have two problems. First, I have to wake her to change her. Second, there's no more carrier to put her to sleep (because EVERYTHING) and thus manage Darwin. But she's a legend, so she chills in my arms with only occasional fuss.
Meanwhile, Darwin has decided to go upstairs on his own (love that kid), so we transition between putting Evie down (cue: screaming) and putting some PJs on and picking Evie up for cuddles whole Darwin picks stories. We read stories with Evie mercifully nodding off in my arms.
HUGE WIN: EVIE IS DOWN IN BED.
Now, Darwin. Who has recently learned to forward roll and is now practising in bed. He, like Rob Thomas, 'doesn't want to be lonely' and insists I stay close. This means I sit on the floor outside his room with the door ajar and he pops in and out.
Now, Darwin. Who has recently learned to forward roll and is now practising in bed. He, like Rob Thomas, 'doesn't want to be lonely' and insists I stay close. This means I sit on the floor outside his room with the door ajar and he pops in and out.
Usually, he'll fall asleep between visits. Not tonight! First, he needs to do a poo! This is used as an opportunity to demand further stories, sing songs and - like the best of Occupy Wall Street - unwaveringly protest being moved on whilst having an unwiped bum.
At last, he agrees to get off the toilet, but only when I suggest he might like to admire his work - which he does. Back to bed for round two. He has now - just now - fallen asleep. Downstairs there is still a full baby bath, poo-covered clothes and toys everywhere.
And I just realised at the start of all this, I labelled today Friday, which probably tells you all you need to know.
BUT here's the big reveal. This is a pretty normal day. But we - mostly Jenn - still gets messages from people saying we're 'just not there for them as much' and lamenting a changed friendship. This does my head in.
It's hard to understand how much emotional work goes into every day running a house. That energy has to be redirected from somewhere. So if your mate has new kids and doesn't text back as much, just swallow your pride and be the one to call, drop in, or just chill the fuck out.
ALSO:
Single parents are fucking heroes. They do this day in, day out, often with limited to no respite and nobody to share the clean up/financial/emotional work with.
Single parents are fucking heroes. They do this day in, day out, often with limited to no respite and nobody to share the clean up/financial/emotional work with.
Last thing: we've all heard of those studies that suggest parents are less happy than their non-parenting peers. No shit. But don't underestimate the Sisyphean satisfaction that comes from being on top of laundry, getting the kids to bed, etc... No, we must imagine parents happy.
(NB: Of course many parents aren't happy - mental and physical health, poverty, regret. Telling them they should be happy would be cruel. The point is: parenting as a practice is able to tap into different kinds of satisfaction, even if they don't have the same hedonic pay-off.)
