Tag: toddlers

Today is a bad day. It starts off alright, if you don’t count the rubbish night that is. It was a combination of Tinytoes crying out in pain from her teething and DH unintentionally waking me up in the night which kept me from sleeping. Paradoxically our newborn is the quiet one; waking just once for a quick feed when I was awake anyway.

The day starts well enough; DH gets Tinytoes up and out of bed, dropping her off at nursery on his way to work. I take Microtoes to the first session of the postnatal group I mentioned last week and finally get to meet some mums in my new village. The session itself is pretty boring: one and a half hours all about weaning. The three others are first-time mums and new to it all, whereas I was still weaning Tinytoes this time last year.

The day begins to deteriorate when I pick Tinytoes up at 1pm. It is lightly raining and I’d not had lunch as time was too tight between postnatal group ending and nursery pick-up.  I didn’t even have time to attach my sling properly and could feel Microtoes slipping lower and lower as I climb the stairs to the nursery.

Tinytoes is clearly unhappy and out of sorts: she is still teething and has a bad cold. She refused all her lunch at nursery. Her rebellious frame of mind becomes evident when she stops stock still on the stairway, refusing to descend more than halfway and refusing to give me her hand.

I hover nervously next to her, my left hand desperately clutching her eight week old sister to avoid her slipping out through the sling. I’m unable to move further up or down in case Tinytoes should trip and plummet to the bottom of the stairs. She can’t even walk in a straight line without tripping or hurtling into something, so descending a steep staircase is another matter entirely.  I stand there helplessly trying not to let her see how much I want her to move in case it makes her rebel further. This was not the place for a full-on meltdown, I think, as I gradually become aware that we are causing the most almighty bottleneck.

Tinytoes is blithely unaware of the commotion we are causing. Instead, she finds it entertaining; staring up at the parents queuing to come down the stairs with their little ones, while I grimace apologetically at those waiting to come up.  Terrified Microtoes is going to drop out the bottom of the sling, I cradle her tiny body with both hands and eventually step down in front of my toddler, allowing the people behind us to file past. I use my body to stop Tinytoes from falling. Once everyone has come down and everyone has gone up (this takes quite some time), Tinytoes waits until the last remaining person has exited the building before slowly descending as she grasps onto the banister, rather than my hand.

Assuming my troubles are over, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Still refusing to hold my hand, I panic as Tinytoes runs out towards the road. I tell her very firmly to hold my hand, cars are dangerous etc but she is unfazed. I raise my voice and grab her arm. Furiously she flings herself onto the wet road (next to a parked car) and refuses to get up. Across the road, a young woman holding a baby stares gormlessly at me. I try to pick her up but struggle with Microtoes who I’m convinced is about to fall from the sling. Eventually I manage to scoop up Tinytoes under my right arm, her wet and muddy arms and legs flailing, holding onto Microtoes for dear life with my left arm.

Back home I place Tinytoes in her cot but she refuses to sleep. I leave her for a while and try yet again to call one of my two main clients; whose contract is up for renewal tomorrow.  After weeks of calling, finally I get through. I run my own business and this particular London-based client has always been ‘delighted’ with my work.

The call leaves me reeling. The co-founding partner tells me that although they’re ‘delighted’ with my work, they won’t be renewing the contract as they have decided to use someone else.  I hide my horror and keep my reaction professional. To begin with I’m nonplussed. His explanation is that they’ve chosen someone who can do other areas of work (all of which my firm can also do).

Then the penny drops: it must be because I’m on maternity leave. When I’d first announced my pregnancy we’d discussed contract renewal. The partner had insisted they would be continuing with my company, initially via a Paris-based colleague I subcontract (whom they’d already met and apparently liked). They’d even gone as far to say it was ‘highly commendable’ for me to juggle work with small children and they were keen to support me in my endeavour.   Naively I’d believed them.

After hanging up I stare into space, my addled brain trying to process what I’d just been told. I have a nagging headache along with some  of the early symptoms of mastitis, which tends to flare up when my nursing routine alters. Microtoes jolts me back into reality, giving a little cry for a feed. She smiles up at me and my heart melts. For a moment nothing else matters.

Then Tinytoes wakes up and the proverbial sh#t really hits the fan. She is furious and in obvious pain with a streaming cold. I manage to administer the Calpol and the screaming continues. I manage to bring her downstairs and place her in her highchair, next to Microtoes. Mindful she had not eaten any lunch I manage to prepare her a yummy meal of sausage and baked beans (don’t judge me, they’re the sugar-free variety…).That’s about all I manage.  For the rest of the day. My plans to travel to the supermarket with both of them go out the window.

She angrily flings her bowl of food in such a way that the baked beans go all over me, Microtoes and the floor. I snap and shout at her and she roars in fury, totally inconsolable. Microtoes begins crying for a feed. I carry her older sister kicking and screaming up the stairs and place her in her cot until she calms down, which doesn’t happen. After feeding Mircotoes I return to her sister who is still kicking and screaming and shouting out for her daddy.  I’m normally a “glass half full” kind of person, but by now I am overwhelmed.  I pick up Microtoes who regurgitates my breastmilk back into my hair and down my shoulder, where it curdles into the baked bean residue.

How did things come to this, I wonder?  I eventually get Tinytoes to calm down slightly by offering her some packets of tissues to play with. She, Microtoes and I are all on my bed. One by one she takes every single tissue out of each packet, but I don’t care as she’s no longer crying. Microtoes  is on her back sleeping.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I hear DH opening the front door back home from work. Tinytoes leans forward and accidentally knocks Microtoes’ head, thankfully not hard, but enough to wake her little sister and make her scream. And Tinytoes joins in crying. It’s all too much for me and I begin to sob too. As DH enters the bedroom he is confronted by all three members of his family balling their eyes out. On a bed strewn with unused tissues.

He takes it all in his stride and Tinytoes is soon silenced, in awe at seeing her mummy crying. Microtoes is soon back asleep again. My husband comforts me, telling me I’m not a crap mum and it’s not something wrong I’m doing (it feels like it sometimes), but Tinytoes is just suffering with her teeth, her cold, not having eaten and is expressing herself the only way she knows how. I know all this deep down, but sometimes it takes someone else to tell me.

DH then whisks Tinytoes off to the supermarket (after she hungrily polishes off the remnants of her dinner) and leaves me to marvel at the silence reigning as I type up my blog (for those of you still reading: well done! Sorry it’s so long but I’m finding it immensely cathartic).

DH is the glue that holds the family together, I think to myself. How the hell am I going to manage next week when he’s travelling overnight (over 2 nights) with work? And how the hell do other people manage; single mums or dads with 2, 3 or even 4 kids? And why the hell is Tinytoes always as good as gold for DH – and nursery staff – and not for me?!

I take my temperature and it’s 37.9 degrees. Maybe another reason for things getting too much for me today…

Oh well, tomorrow’s another day; let’s hope Tinytoes is not still teething and that Microtoes’ feeding regulates so I can keep the mastitis symptoms at bay.