‘Wait til you have two’

It seems to me that anyone who has more than one child is teetering on the edge of madness. I can barely mention Sam’s penchant for cat food or his Houdini-style attempts to free himself from his buggy in the middle of Lewisham High Street to ‘friends with more than one kid’ without them stifling a laugh. ‘Just wait til you have two,’ they snigger.
To them, it seems, wrestling one baby back into the pushchair is a breeze - a holiday, no less. I’m lucky, they tell me. I have time to go to the loo, to write this blog, to eat a sarnie, to make a cup of tea and to prize my baby’s fingers out of the plug socket. They don’t.
Come 8pm, when I’m slumped in an exhausted heap on the sofa, they’re still hanging up the third load of washing or scrubbing crayon off the carpet. While I’m up just once in the night seeing to Sam’s sore teeth, they’re lucky to get four hours’ sleep thanks to kids wetting the bed, toddlers wanting to play and newborns screeching for a feed.
Today I sat in the garden with the paper while Sam bum shuffled his way around harassing the cat. It wasn’t my idea of total relaxation, but at least I got to skim over the headlines – which is more than my ‘friends with more than one kid’ get to read. So all I can say to them is yes, thanks for the tip – I WILL wait til I have two…
On a similar note, did you read this in the Times last week? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/caitlin_moran/article1469531.ece
Good on you, Caitlin Moran.

Sick sick sick

There are loads of things people don't tell you when you have a baby... that you can't physically feel your bum to poo after a natural birth, that you suffer a deep PMT-style depression after you stop breast feeding, that every day you find yourself looking forward to 5pm so you can justify that glass of wine.
But one of the worst things is that the very second your baby enters nursery you're all plagued with a constant, relentless sickness. Coughs, colds, chicken pox, conjunctivitus, viruses from hell, infections that rattle your bones, pound your head, shiver your spine and have you retching like you've never retched before.
In the last month, Sam has been well for five - yes, just five - days. For the rest of the time he's been utterly miserable. And so have I... because, aside from having a clingy, tearful, snotty baby, and aside from changing squitty nappies a hundred times a day, whatever he's had I've had too.
'It's perfectly normal,' the doctor smiled when I begged him to make my baby well again. 'In fact, it's better that he's ill now than when he first starts school. It's important he builds up his immune system.'
'Hear that Sam?' I said. 'You can stop your moaning. Your runny arse and gammy eyes are a GOOD thing...'
Then, perhaps selfishly, I thought, 'but what about me?' When I sit on the loo with a bucket in front of me, feeling like I'm going to faint and hearing Sam wimpering to himself next door, how is that possibly a good thing? And don't get me started on how every week I call up work to say I can't come in. 'Sam's sick' just doesn't wash anymore. Neither does 'I'm sick.' It might actually be easier to ring in and say, 'you know what? I can't be arsed to come in today. I'm officially bunking off.' Because, let's face it, that's what they think I'm doing anyway.
Right now, I'm off with a tummy bug and Sam, despite his conjunctivitus, is in nursery. Truth is, I need a break... I'm just sick of being sick.