Picture Perfect Moments

Baring your inner most thoughts to your family and friends is scary enough let alone complete strangers. But I have promised myself to be entirely honest and write as if no one will ever read these. So here I am, on a particularly bad day. My husband has been out at work for 12 hours now and the kids have just gone to bed. Today it wasn’t them. It was me. I felt it coming yesterday and knew I couldn’t be in the house alone today or I would just spiral downwards. I planned on messaging my friends for a social distanced walk or my mother in law for a social distanced garden play date. But I woke up completely deflated. Jaxon actually slept in, which would be great but that means they wont go down for a morning nap together so when am I meant to get showered and dressed? I hear you, ‘Just take one of them in the bathroom with you’. Its not always that simple..An 18 month old will not be confined to a bathroom and a 7 month old will not stay quiet enough for the other to nap. So we were already off to a false start. Needless to say I have just showered and put on fresh pyjamas at 7pm. I knew so badly that if we stayed in the house all day my mood would rub off on them. But when the anxieties creep in you don’t want to bother anyone with a phone call. You don’t want to be a nuisance. You don’t actually want to tell anyone. So you just stay in your sad, un-showered state cleaning up after the babies. Puke after puke. Changing nappy after nappy. Washing, tumble drying, dishwasher loading and unloading for what feels like the tenth time today. When this mood creeps in everything is an effort. Not in a lazy way but in a 10 tonne stone wrapped around your neck sort of way. I couldn’t even tell my husband as I knew he was having a busy day and didn’t need his wife’s crazy ass ringing him to offload. 

I constantly feel as if I will be stuck in this moment forever. I struggle to see past the lack of sleep, nappies and milk all the time. Obviously I know one day we will all be riding our bikes to the park together to get an ice cream (how idyllic) but I still cant really believe it will be true. Days like this feel as if this is it, forever. Obviously if in some alternate universe this really was it then of course I would oblige because I would do anything for my babies. But I am completely aware I am being ridiculous and in some weird way I will ‘miss these days’. (So I’m told.) Maybe not specifically these days but I sort of already understand the premise. Over the years I have gotten quite good at pulling myself out of the ‘sinking mud’ sort of days but today it swallowed me whole and it felt as if there was nothing I could do about it. I feel as if I have some how failed them today because they didn’t get dressed or get any fresh air. Obviously we have had pyjama days before but this one felt as if it wasn’t my choice and I’m not ok with that. 

I began writing down my thoughts as being a first time mum, at the time, I didn’t feel that anyone had really told me the whole truth about motherhood. We see picture perfect moments on social media, of course, as it isn’t anyone’s natural reaction to grab the camera mid tantrum. Quite frankly these aren’t moments people would like to remember. But it then created a false sense of what I thought should be ‘normal’. It’s ok that people don’t post pictures of the bad bits but I do think we should talk about it more. Most days I have a picture perfect moment to capture but right after it comes tears and tantrums because I took a stinky old milk carton away from one of them that they found in the recycling. But do I take a picture of that? No, because somehow it feels against the rules to show the truth. We have normalised so much over the years, mental health, sexuality and equality amongst other things. But I feel this topic isn’t yet one of them. I’ve personally realised social services are not going to come knocking on my door if I admit I’m having a bad day or need a bit of support from friends and family. I got sick of hearing ‘This is such a lovely age’ or ‘I absolutely loved every minute of having all my babies and being a stay at home mum’. Every minute? I am sure that’s not true. People seem to forget the frustrating bits of what was raising there children however long ago. As we quickly forget the pain and trauma of labour to do it all over again!  Making these comments does not help the mum who is definitely not feeling that way but being made to think that she should. That she is somehow wrong or awful for not feeling this way. When in fact it’s the most normal thing to be feeling when your world has just been, in the words of the ‘fresh prince of bel air’, flipped upside down. She almost reached out to you to admit she was struggling, until you said those words. Instead she just smiles and nods, heading back behind closed doors to feel isolated and alone in her thoughts once again. 

What I’m saying is, firstly we need to know its ok not to love every second of raising children. Sometimes it shit. There, I said it. But sometimes its utterly wonderful and you didn’t know it was possible to love someone this much. You also don’t have to be the craft making, baking, picture perfect fun mum because I’ve got news for you, she is not real. She is an illusion that she wants you to see. Secondly that its ok to share these thoughts with anyone. Anyone who is willing to listen. Possibly not the mum who ‘loved every second of her children’. She sounds judge-y. But I can also assure you, she too dealt with tantrums in the middle of the supermarket. She too raised her voice and occasionally screamed into a pillow. Just because she chooses not to admit it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I urge you to join me in normalising these conversations. If just one person feels less alone or less isolated in their feelings from reading this, then I have already achieved in what I am setting out to do.

So here’s to us mums/dads/carers. To the amazing picture perfect moments and to the tantrums we endure behind the camera. Its all part of the journey we have embarked on. I’ve just had a picture perfect moment of the babies laughing and playing together. Now I have one crying because he’s over tired and one having a tantrum because I have taken a glass J20 bottle away from him. Since when could he reach up on to the kitchen side?! I must have blinked and missed that.

Emily