I’m always saying how people don’t get what it’s like to be a single mum so here’s a day in the life post from me about today – Mother’s Day. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but actually it wasn’t so bad after all. My single mum’s mother’s day.
Sometime in the early hours before the sun has woken up – I have lost the will to live. Exhausted by my son who only slept at 11.30pm and is now on his forth wake up of the night screaming about random things (like balloons and cars).
9am ish – Wake up call from my son in the format of him sitting on my head and nearly suffocating me. He then moves round and manages to curl his whole body around my head. It’s quite an impressive cuddle style and it (almost) makes up for me feeling like I’ve only just gone to sleep (see point above).
9.15am – Hear the chairs moving around in the kitchen downstairs. My son has a habit of moving them and climbing up to grab whatever he wants from the counter. Rush downstairs to check he’s not about to impale himself on some kitchen object.
9.20am – Give little one his breakfast.
9.25am – Check facebook and feel envious and a little melancholy about all the lovely mothers day posts that are on my feed, you know where some amazing dad has arranged some lovely flowers for his partner, or people are going out and having a lovely family day.
9.35am – Attempt to feed myself breakfast. End up with little on my lap and told in no uncertain terms that I should ‘share mummy!’. Manage to scoff down about 70% of my breakfast anyway. Result.
10am – Receive a text message from my mum to look in the bag hung on the back of the kitchen door. She’s only gone and hidden a homemade toddler made card and bar of chocolate in there for me. Mums are the best!
10.30am – Try to convince little one to tidy up the crackers that are strewn around the lounge from yesterday. He does quite well – gets most of them into a little bowl. Then throws them all around again and runs off with the bowl on his head. Give up on the tidying up.
11am – Spend quality time cuddling on the sofa as my son intermittently nose dives onto the floor and gives the BEST smile ever when I retrieve his camel from behind the sofa. I listen to him tell me all about the people who are ‘cuties’. Even I get a mention! I marvel at how lucky I am to have my gorgeous son and my own lovely mum too.
11.10am – Contemplate how I should get off the sofa and clean the disaster zone of the kitchen or the mess of the lounge and then remember the one perk of single motherhood is doing what you like when you like and thinking sod it when you don’t feel like it. So instead I snuggle up on the sofa and read a book to my son until I get head-butted and nearly lose my front tooth.
11.15am- Confiscate the rather large umbrella my son has got hold of and is waving around the room.
11.18am – Marvel at the somersaults my son can do off the sofa and wonder what is the youngest age you can send a child to gymnastics.
11.22am – Accept that I really should get us both washed and dressed even if it is Mother’s Day. Especially given my son still has pen marks on his face from yesterday (I did try to scrub it off, honest).
11.33am – Feel guilty when my son crawls on to my lap and asks ‘mummy happy?’ in his concerned little voice. Quickly followed by ‘mummy tired?’. I worry about the impact my ‘difficult’ days are having on my son and how he seems far too concerned about people’s moods for an ‘average’ toddler.
11.35am – Quickly revert to just feeling annoyed as my son gets hold of some pole and starts to bash the lounge light fitting around. Give him in quick a lesson in glass, electricity and danger.
11.40am – Finally gets us both in the shower/ bath. Wonder in awe at the amount of germs that must exist in my bathtub… why has no-one invented self-cleaning bath toys/mats/curtains… It really is rank in my bath tub!
11.42am – Find my lost toothbrush that I had been blaming my son for losing (my bad). Realise this is why I end up with eight toothbrushes between me and my son. They always seem to multiply.
12pm – Get nappy and clothes on my son without too much of a meltdown (mine or his). Result!
12.15pm – Go to the park. Feel pangs of envy at all the dads who are taking their kids out for a play to give their mums a mother’s day rest. Feel even greater pangs of guilt that my son doesn’t get that. Ever. Consider taking me and my son out for lunch just to cheer us both up. Then remember a) I am skint b) it would be no where near as fun as I imagine. It would, in fact, involve trying to restrain him in a high chair (or any chair) for more than 2.5 minutes, trying to stop him throwing his food around and ending up sharing most of my lunch with him whilst he sits on my knee and elbows my boob. Repeatedly. Instead I just try to actually pay him some attention and restrain from the desire to scroll through facebook aimlessly.
1.35pm – Leave the park and go home via the shop to pick up some essentials.
1.50pm – Start to get Friday’s left overs out to reheat for lunch. Get annoyed with my son for throwing things off the counter. Get annoyed with myself how quickly everything goes from being all nice and happy fuzzy mummy feelings to – arrggghhhh ffs.
2pm – Heat up Friday night’s leftovers for lunch. Go to the toilet whilst leaving my son guarding the microwave. Return to him having taken the plate out of the microwave and him face down in the plate of food trying to eat it, somewhat like a dog. Remove him to a high chair and give him some cutlery in the hope he may actually use it.
2.10pm – Eat my own leftovers lunch. Try to bribe my son to pick up the crackers again saying he can watch telly if he does. He picks up the big pieces. That’ll do. I plonk him in front of the telly. Wonder how long toddlers can sit in front of the telly without their brains turning to mush. My son has only managed to learn to sit in front of the telly in the last few weeks and I’m rather concerned that now he’s learnt this fab skill I may be inclined to *somewhat* abuse it.
2.30pm – Start writing this post online whilst son is still enjoying kiddy telly. Did I mention what a fab new skill this is of his?
2.53pm – Consider that I really should tidy up a bit before my friend comes round for a cuppa.
2.54pm – Friend arrives for a cuppa. Oh well.
4pm – Son face plants onto the floor for the fifth time. It’s a new game. Friend looks increasingly shocked each time. This time he hurts himself and comes for a cuddle better.
4.10pm – Son falls asleep ON MY LAP. This hasn’t happened since he was a baby, this is amazing. He never naps any more. Or maybe it’s not amazing. It’s pretty late for a nap. Oh well, it’s amazing for now.
4.12pm – Tell friend how this NEVER happens. She jokes he may have concussion from the fall. Look of panic falls across my face. Friend reassures me she was joking. But was she?
5.30pm – Friend leaves, son begrudgingly wakes up as I move him from my lap.
5.35pm – Phone mum to see how her day has been.
5.40pm – Son falls back to sleep on the sofa. Now start to worry that he has actually got concussion from the face plant earlier and start to google concussion.
6.15pm – Wake son up again. Shine torch in his eyes (as per google’s medical instructions) and realise he’s fine, although now slightly blinded.
6.35pm – Feed son left over chicken again (cold this time) as continue to talk to mum on phone.
6.55pm – Heat baked beans and toast the one piece of crust left in the fridge (technically it wasn’t a whole crust, it was origianlly a whole crust which my son had got a hold of the other day and ripped into three pieces, still it went in the toaster OK so who’s counting).
7.10pm – Give son his dinner.
7.15pm – Realise I should probably give him some vegetables so peel and boil some carrots.
7.25pm – Realise I should also really sort out the disgusting kitchen. Start to empty dishwasher son comes in and I shut dishwasher door without paying attention – tray falls out with all the dishes falling into the dishwasher with a mighty clatter. Somehow they don’t break. As I try to retrieve the dishes my son leans on the door to see ‘what’s happened?’ – door falls off, on to my foot. It hurts. I restrain myself from swearing (too loudly). I mend said dishwasher door (getting quite adept at this now, manage to do it without bursting into tears unlike the first times it happened).
7.30pm – Son refuses the carrots I’ve lovingly boiled.
7.45pm – Put frozen pizza on for my dinner.
8.05pm – Eat said frozen pizza. Share more than I’d like to with my son.
8.10pm – Son eats one of the carrots. Success. Oh, or maybe not. Turn round and he’s smashing them in to the floor with the oven glove on. And then rolling one of his cars over them. Not so smug mum now. Try to feed him the smashed carrots from the floor. He refuses. Even I have to admit that was probably the sensible option as I realise they are covered in glitter from our arts and crafts evening last week.
8.40pm – Start the bedtime routine.
9pm – Little one gets increasing hyper and I start to lose the will. He’s singing nursery rhymes on triple speed, climbing on everything and emptying all his draws. Give.me.strength.
9.15pm – Remember that if I actually engage him he’s a lot easier to handle. Give him a choice of PJs and he’s all sweetness and light. Go me. Pluck up the energy to get this shit together. Read him four books. I CAN do this.
9.35pm – Get him in bed. Mine. At least it’s a bed though.
9.38pm – Listen to a high speed mash up of twinkle twinkle and baa baa black sheep.
9.40pm – Have good night kiss and cuddles. Tell him I’m off to tidy up downstairs. He tells me at least seven times ‘don’t get out of cot’ (meaning himself, to which I agree). Before I’ve got down the stairs he is out of the bed following me.
9.42pm – Return little one to my bed and read a chapter of Winnie the Pooh. Intermittently interrupted by some more high speed nursery rhymes and my son getting increasingly concerned as to why the donkey (Eeyore) is sad. Again feel guilty for quite how to heart my son takes it when people (animals) are sad. He wants to cheer up the donkey and offers to get him a tissue. He asks with increasing concern whether Pooh and Piglet are also sad. I try to explain that sometimes people get sad and that’s OK and we can’t always make them better. I think to myself that I am going to write a toddler book about sad mummies.
10.37pm – Say good night, again. Only to be followed out by my son one minute later. Return and try again. Explain again why the sun has gone and that it’s not ‘lost’ or ‘missing’ but has gone to sleep. Like most two year olds all around the country!
10.42pm – Extricate myself from the room.
10.52pm – Return upstairs to investigate the strange banging noises. Discover that it is my son removing all the soft toys (approximately 17 of them) from his cot and putting them all in my bed. Convince him to lie down with said soft toys and return to my blog post downstairs. Pray that he will suddenly come over all tired and decide to fall asleep.
11.05pm – Decide I really should stop pretending to ignore the noises coming from upstairs and go and investigate once again. He has got in my ‘important stuff’ draw and is pretending to use the bank card reader as a phone. Threaten him with removing him to his own room. Feel bad that his room is being used as a threat. Feel like I’m not too sure how much more of this I can take but don’t actually feel as bad as I usually do. I think it’s because there is less screaming and tears than normal.
11.11pm – Become increasingly annoyed that my little one still won’t go to sleep. Then remember that I should be nice and not do things like lock him in his room till he falls asleep in front of the door and I have to gently push it open without bending his leg backwards or hitting his head so I can place him carefully into his bed. After all, I’m doing a day in the life post today and that would make me look kinda like a crap mum. Somehow the thought gives me more patience.
11.09pm – Do some more work on this post whilst keeping an ear out for noises from upstairs.
11.25pm – Hear more noises from upstairs, go and check on him. He insists he is ‘lying down’. True fact. Sit outside the room so he can’t escape as he seems full of energy still.
11.27pm – Finally success. Hear heavy breathing, go in to check and he is fast asleep. As are the 17 soft teddies making very little room for me.
11.32pm – Finish this post, add some fancy photos and feel exhausted but happy. The thought that this “bedtime routine” will no doubt be repeated tomorrow, and the day after, somewhat fills my heart with dread. Work days are especially hard. But I did it today and I can do it again.
My day may not have involved anything extra ordinary but it was a good day. We got through without too much drama. I told him I loved him at least 73 times. He told me he loved me a couple of times. He gave me some lovely cuddles and kisses. We didn’t have many tears. Sure the house is a disaster but who gives a shit. I’m off to bed.
Happy Mother’s Day y’all!