Full Time Toddler (Permanent Contract) - Job Description

How the job description would read if being a toddler were considered a profession...

We are currently looking to recruit an experienced toddler to join our team. 

Person Specification
The ideal candidate will be a professional whinger, ideally with previous experience of planning and executing public tantrums. Fluent in the art of saying No, you are likely to have a proven track record of Food Refusal and Unhealthy Snack Manipulation. You will need to possess the strongest of wills and a fiery temper. Nap-takers need not apply.

Primary Duties
- Delaying all excursions from the house by at least 30 minutes.
- Following assigned caregiver to the toilet. And watching. 
- Demanding Peppa Pig on repeat.
- Regularly collapsing in a fit of unexplained rage.
- Asking for something and then changing your mind (then changing it back again).
- Managing the sleep cycle for the whole family (5am Parent Bed Invasions may be required).

Hours: Full time (distinction between night and day not always made).
Contract: Permanent. They can't fire you.

The Unmumsy Mum

Lesson 16: More Than Just My Bump

Well, 14 weeks pregnant and I still haven't spread the news to all interested parties. 

Immediate family - check. 
Close friends - check
Line manager - check.

The Others. Not so much. 

When people say 'is it public knowledge yet?!' what they really mean is:

Have you posted it on Facebook. Ideally with a due date announcement and a scan picture?

Well no, I haven't. I'm not being disrespectful to excited FB baby news posts (I did one first time round, and watched happily as 'likes' and comments came in from people we barely know).

The truth is, I don't like the fact that pregnancy takes over as your defining characteristic.

'Have you heard from Sarah lately?'
'No, but see she's pregnant again!' 

As if being pregnant is all I have been up to lately. Forget achievements at work, the ongoing house renovation and day to day LIFE. From this point forth my single purpose on this planet is to grow a foetus. 

Don't get me wrong, it is of course all terribly exciting. But forgive me if I'm not content to put ALL OTHER CONVERSATION on hold for 9 months. 

At work, a high proportion of colleagues I probably should have told don't know yet, purely because I quite like being asked for my input at planning/strategy/update meetings based on the job they pay me to do. 

I'm all up for the 'congrats, when are you due?' chat, but experience informs me that people actually stop asking you about ANYTHING else. 

Sure I am pregnant.
I am also a young woman. An employee. A Rape Crisis volunteer. A mother. A wife. A lover of antique furniture waging a war against cats shitting in my garden. 

Be excited for me - I appreciate your kind words. Please just remember that my very existence is greater than the sum of my pregnant parts.

The Unmumsy Mum

Lesson 15: 'Having Another One'

'So when are you having another one?'

It's like the unwritten rule in our family. You have two. Because, well, because that is just what you do. I'm one of two, the husband is one of two, our respective siblings each have two of their own.  

 

One is lonely. 

Three is too many. 

Two is just right. Normal.

It's the gospel. 

 

From the moment Baby One arrived, I was quite clear I didn't want another one. I regularly told anybody who would listen that we had no plans for a second. GOD NO! We would stick at one. I had no desire to do it again, thank you very much...

 

'Oh you'll change your mind!'

Well, Baby One has hit the terrible twos and...(drumroll please):
 

I am thirteen weeks pregnant.
 

Baby Two is in the oven, and once again I have spent most mealtimes with my head stuck down the toilet and most daytimes with a slightly greyish skin tone (on really special days the gift of acne has presented itself, always a pleasure).

On the one hand, I suppose they (the 'others', the Two Children Enforcers) were right - I am, after all, once again With Child.

 

But on the other hand, I fear I haven't really changed my mind at all.
Deep down *whispers* I still have little desire to do it all again.

So why did we get back on the babycoaster? This was, in fact, all planned.

I could bore you with The Complete Works of Second Child Reasoning but ultimately it comes down to The Vision.

What is it that you see when you picture your life in five or ten years time?

For me, there have always been two children in this picture. Two children in the back of the car, two children on holiday, two children at the dinner table...a happy family of four (plus our smelly cat).

I never have a Vision involving babies, simply because (and I'm not even sure if it's excusable to say this) I don't really like babies all that much. Needless to say I haven't been longing for another maternity leave, or deliberating names, or feeling broody watching One Born Every Minute.

But I have been content in our decision that we should start the completion of our family now. LET'S DO THIS.

Said Bun in Said Oven

You see, the ups and downs of those baby years are what shape The Vision of my complete family. Already with my toddler I look back at what has been the steepest ever learning curve of my life so far and I don't regret it.

I just find it all so HARD. Super bloody difficult...*Starts shaking at memory of zero sleep, problems breastfeeding and a loss of all meaningful conversation*...

So have I changed my mind about wanting another baby? Well no, not exactly.

Am I excited at the prospect of this new Being who is currently straining my top button?
Well YES actually. I am excited. This is the start of our new chapter as the family I'd always imagined - and I am going in with Oh So Realistic expectations this time.

Lesson 15: Despite what people tell you, there is no hard and fast rule about Having Another One. Perhaps keep in mind the 'end game' and where you see your family further down the line (had I focused on the whole baby bit, I'm not sure I would ever have done it all again).

The Unmumsy Mum

 

Lesson 14: Your Child Will Behave Impeccably for Others

It’s one of life’s leading injustices.

Not that your child behaves nicely, because of course *forces smiles through gritted teeth* we welcome good behaviour. Rather the injustice lies in the fact that your child will appear to save all disruptive, angry and frankly INTOLERABLE behaviour just for you. Joyful.

I have to be honest here, at times I have concluded it MUST BE ME. As already outlined in Lesson 8 I am not a natural ‘Coper,’ in fact more often than not I think I am not coping at all. Perhaps my child knows this, and chooses to push my already weary buttons…

However, in the last month or two I have turned this conclusion on its head and I am now one hundred percent certain that parents simply get the worst of their bundles of joy.

We get the bundle, minus the joy.

Often a snotty, angry, clingy bundle who is seemingly on hunger strike and throws his cutlery across the table…maybe that’s just mine - he turns two this week, and quite frankly I am at my wits’ end with his general behaviour *reaches for wine.*

It doesn’t matter who else looks after him for the day (grandparents/child-minder/postman), he is invariably well behaved. Comments on collection/pick-up range from ‘he’s been good as gold’ to ‘isn’t he easy to look after?!’ The latter is nearly enough ammunition for me to claw both my eyes out in a frustrated rage. Said rage is also accompanied by marginal guilt that I am almost willing him to behave poorly for somebody else, so I can report back quite honestly ‘THIS IS MY WHOLE LIFE!’  

When I have him for a day on my own, I don’t successfully manage to do anything (he kicks off in every shop/at the doctors/in the library - purposefully collapsing face down on the floor is commonplace). When his grandparents take him shopping/to the library/out for lunch he is, by all accounts, helpful. Say what?



How my child behaves for others

His 'special' behaviour reserved for me

On Sunday, I had the luxury of a lie-in (sorry to mums who have not had one of these in a while, I won’t dwell on it). Anyhow, I surfaced at 10am and ventured downstairs with the promise of a nice family day stretching out before me. I had been downstairs for no longer than two minutes when Helpful Henry turned into Hurricane Henry, and yet another breakfast was eaten with him hanging off my leg and snivelling on my dressing gown.

Me: ‘What’s the matter?’
Henry: ‘I WANT BUZZ’
Me: ‘You want Buzz Lightyear?’ *fetches Buzz Lightyear*
Henry: ‘NO! Take it AWAY!!’
Me: ‘Okay, Buzz has gone away’
Henry: *screams* ‘BUZZ!!’
And so it begins.

Not an unusual turn of events, you might think, until my dear husband (obviously in my good books for facilitating my lie-in), stated:

'He was absolutely fine until you came down. Good as gold.’

I won’t repeat my reply.  

The Unmumsy Mum

Lesson 13: Why It's Fine To Reminisce About BEFORE

We all do it.
Okay, some of us (ahem) look back at the Before Days marginally more often than others.
Regardless, I just want to put it out there that this is FINE.
Normal, natural, necessary.

Some mums, I have noticed, don’t partake in Before Remembrance.  This, I believe, is largely due to feeling guilty about thinking back to a time when we were not mums. As if it signifies regret for having joined The Motherhood. I feel no such guilt, and I’ll tell you for why.

The Before Days should be celebrated for all they represented.
Freedom, lie-ins, going to the cinema, having something to get ready for (baby gym class doesn’t count), climbing the career ladder (or not climbing it through choice), having time to browse, having money to buy, having dimple free thighs, uninterrupted sleep, Hangover Sundays, talking to your partner (not about kids), having a tantrum free dinner, going on holiday...

My word the list is endless!

Carefree Camping at V Festival

There is no shame in remembering these Glory Days.
Last week, when my toddler lay on the floor in Next screaming ‘HELP ME I’M STUCK! FIRE! CALL FIREMAN SAM!’ (he wasn’t stuck, there was no fire) I remembered with great fondness the days when I could actually look at clothes whilst out shopping. And try them on. Without getting red and sweaty and without swearing.

Do I miss life before motherhood? HELL YES. Is that not allowed?

I am by no means suggesting I would rather not have a child. The situation is different now. You are in no way being unfaithful to your bundles of joy by remembering life without them, nor are you wishing to wipe them out of the equation. Rather, you are remembering life before. A different time. A special time.



Having a tan. Being slim. Reading. This is my ultimate Before Remembrance indulgence

From now on, when people say ‘god I can’t imagine life without the kids, can you?’ I will stand tall and say 'YES I BLOODY CAN. It was beautiful.'

The Unmumsy Mum