Lesson 58: "Just have a little patience..."

I don't like letting Gary and the Take That lads down but my patience has gone AWOL. I think it might have died.

A commando-crawling baby coupled with a mealtime-refusing threenager is a test of patience for anyone, no? NO? Just nod. I just need to know that you are nodding.
Because this week I've started to wonder whether I ever had any of this magic patience potion to begin with. I never really needed patience before. Not to the same degree. Sure everybody loses patience at times (stuck in traffic/on the phone to HMRC/trying to assemble IKEA toy storage/dealing with knobheads in general) but I never felt overwhelming surges of impatience until I started producing small people. My well documented moments of shit-losing stem from this lack of patience I'm sure of it.

This week's patience-testing moments have included:

• Boy One (3.5) having an 'I will/I won't' tantrum. If you've never played this game with your toddler let me tell you it's a real treat. You ask them to do something (like go for a wee before you leave the house) and they point blank refuse ("I won't"). The consequence of this is a warning, followed by the timeout chair, where they scream "I WILL I WILL I WILL" until you remove them from said chair and steer them towards the toilet. Where they forget the preceding ten minutes and shout "I WON'T" again, as another piece of your soul is destroyed.

"Say 'I WON'T' again she's almost broken!"

• Boy Two (8 months) crying because he wanted a yoghurt then crying some more because he didn't want a yoghurt. Basically it was the yoghurt's fault. Bastard inconsiderate yoghurt.
• As above but substitute 'yoghurt' for 'Heinz biscotti.' 
• Boy One walking deliberately sloooowwlyyy back from the park. Not because his little legs were tired but because I'd made the mistake of telling him we needed to get back to feed his brother. Cue a pointless "let's have a race!" attempt from me (he's not daft) followed by the obligatory "I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU AGAIN" (as I told him again).
• Teething (enough said) 
• Both boys whinging for forty minutes in the car, at a volume just above the shit Disney song (on repeat). Any patient mum would recognise her children were just over tired, and sing along to distract them. She would certainly not resort to under-breath swearing. I tried to be patient by winding down the window to drown out the fucking noise take some deep breaths but it was fruitless. I snapped because there are only so many times you can hear Hawaiian Rollercoaster Ride* from Lilo & Stitch without clawing your eyes out. To add insult to injury we were on the way back from sodding SOFT PLAY.

I'm definitely in the wrong job. I am simply not patient enough to be a parent.

Tips on not losing patience received with thanks.

The Unmumsy Mum

 

 

[*It is a classic though. "There’s no place I’d rather be (than on my surfboard out at sea)..."]

Too honest, you say?

I have read some interesting online comments about parenting blogs this week. When I say 'interesting' I mean they have ranged from the bizarre to the mildly offensive. A general theme seems to be a dislike for 'honest parenting' and an agreement that some things should remain unsaid. As if moaning about life with children is not the Done Thing. Sweary warts and all accounts of motherhood and fatherhood are not welcome, in certain circles. Perhaps they just make everybody feel a tad awkward. Sorry about that...

As somebody who has always vowed to give my honest take on this here parenting lark, I'm actually not surprised that there has been a bit of a backlash. There has to be a reason why the glossier parenting blogs have flooded the market. They are popular because people enjoy looking at nice houses and nicely turned out children (and husbands) with catalogue smiles. I'm fairly certain even those parents have their 'off' days and mutter for fuck's sake under their breath from time to time, perhaps when their three year old throws a 200 piece puzzle on the floor at the same time the baby is sick on the cat. But they choose to blog almost solely about the good bits. Which is great, if you like that kind of thing.

In equal measure, even us 'honest bloggers' have stuff we choose not to blog about. Not because we are filtering our lives for the worse but because an account of our day out when everything was just tickety-boo is just not always that interesting. When I blogged 'It's okay to lose your shit' (after a particularly testing day) I hoped it could really do something. And I think it did - the number of messages of support from mums with PND was staggering. Thanks for making us feel normal, they said. My pleasure.

Had I blogged 'Our wonderful family day out on Dartmoor' I doubt it would have had any impact at all. But just because something is not the best fit for the blog doesn't mean it didn't happen. It is foolish to assume that so-called 'honest parents' don't enjoy the balance, that between the muttered swearing and hatred of Bubble Guppies we too don't whisper 'love you to the moon and back' each night whilst tucking our little buggers into bed. We really do. We probably just dash downstairs for a glass of wine and breathe a 'thank fuck for that' sigh a bit quicker than most.

It is also quite harsh to suggest that writers and followers of blogs like mine are ungrateful for the blessings that are our children. When you are having a rough day, when everything seems just a little bit shit, the last thing you need to hear is 'you don't know how lucky you are.' I think we are all agreed on how lucky we are, thank you. We are just also agreed on how sodding difficult being a parent is [well maybe not everybody: "It's not even that hard" read one comment - good for you love]. For most of us, hearing from other parents at the end of their tethers can be reassuring. In fact last week I received two messages from mums who had conceived through IVF, telling me the guilt they carry for not enjoying every second is WORSE because they are constantly reminded by others how much they longed for that child. Jesus. Can we not cut each other some slack?

I don't know what the point of this post was really, other than to say I hope there is room for all sorts of parenting blogs to co-exist. I was inspired by Brummy Mummy of 2's post which is along the same lines *virtual high five.*  So I'm afraid I won't be uploading face painting tips, or '10 Things to do in half term' anytime soon. I will leave those blogs to the experts. I am much more likely to detail the trauma of a trip to B&Q, or the things that have driven me crazy before breakfast. And all the while I'll be saving the other photos and memories for the private family album...yes even I have one of those.
The Unmumsy Mum

Bank Holiday Monday Highlights*

[*how Bank Holiday Monday went down]

Colouring pens coming out, colouring pens being lobbed at the baby, colouring pens being confiscated.

Threenager screaming over inadequate choice of cereal bowl (and confiscated pens).

Phineas and Fucking Ferb. There's 104 days of summer vacation... *dies a bit inside*

Baby doing the horror movie floor drag to the kitchen bin (to lick it) and bumping his head.

Packing a picnic for the park. HELLO SUPERMUM.

Sitting on wet grass due to lack of picnic bench. Invigilating fight over rice cakes (side note: rice cakes were the picnic). Muttering "for fuck's sake" several times whilst re-allocating rice cakes. RIP SuperMum, she would have packed a picnic blanket.

Baby shitting through all layers. Baby crying because he didn't want shitty layers removed.

BISCUIT BRIBERY

BISCUIT BRIBERY

BISCUIT BRIBERY

Did I mention Mr Unmumsy was in bed with a bug? And it's still only 4pm *laughs hysterically*

May the 4th be with you...pass the wine.

The Unmumsy Mum

Lesson 57: Things that never happen in Soapland (with babies and toddlers)

Real-life shizzle that is largely neglected in Soapland. Corrie scriptwriters take note...
 

During soap births, there is no mention of a placenta. Where the fuck is the placenta? Whether the baby pops out in the back of a car, or in a phone box, or in a hospital bed clearly not soaked in amniotic fluid, once the cord is cut the placenta is forgotten. The 'newborn' baby (who is always miraculously clean, at least 10lb and never has a cone-head or forceps bruising) is handed over and everybody gets on with their day. I blame soaps entirely for my ignorance around this, and my look of bewilderment when the midwife asked if I wanted the injection to get things moving afterwards. What do you mean there's more? Unsurprisingly I also didn't know that the placenta could fail to deliver and get stuck. Yes that happened.  

Recovery from childbirth is immediate in Soapland (after a quick waddle and wince). There is no mad dash to Dev's to stock up on maternity pads or six weeks of avoiding car seat lifting post-section. That said, who needs a car seat? They don't venture further than the 500 square metres surrounding the house.

The baby never has reflux. Colic is mentioned in passing, as they all head off for another child-free drink at the Rovers (don't worry though as Sophie Webster must be babysitting). Nobody says 'Fucking hell have you seen the sofa? There are pools of vomit in the cushion creases again' or 'Why are his neck folds so cheesey?' 

Baby? What baby? Pic via What's On TV

Nobody is sat on the sofa with their boobs out, but everybody is armed with a bottle and steriliser from day one, which I find surprising. In real life, some people bottle feed, some people breastfeed. Of course this isn't real life (the residents of your average street don't enjoy every hot drink in a café and every cold one in a pub, or 'The Bistro') but still, surely amongst the bottles somebody could be sat eating their Roy's Rolls sarnie with a baby on the boob? No?

Soap toddlers rarely behave like arseholes. You never see Lexi lying on the floor of the Minute Mart screaming, or Lily Platt lobbing her Ella's Kitchen snacks at David's face. In fact, where the fuck is Lily Platt? I expect she's upstairs in one of the many bedrooms or bathrooms that Gail's two-up two-down must be hiding (with Sophie Webster supervising, obvs). Sometimes these soap children hold onto an adult's hand and stand quietly whilst a conversation about adultery or pre-mediatated murder of a family member goes on around them. Where are the 'Mummy, mummy MUMMY' interruptions and demands for Star Wars Angry Birds on the iPhone?

Equally, these kids only ever come out with boring stuff. Like 'can you read me a story?' as they blatantly look at the camera crew and wonder who the fuck the stranger is masquerading as their dad. They never shout 'knickers poo poo bum bum head' or ask Siri what the fox said ("Fraka-kaka-kaka-kaka-kow!" if you're wondering).

Clearly I have too much time on my hands because despite all of this, I bloody love the soaps (except Hollyoaks, because that was an omnibus reserved solely for Hangover Sundays, and they died in 2012).

I'd love to hear your own analyses of kids in Soapland...

The Unmumsy Mum

 

 

Lesson 56: Eating out with (small) children

"Let's go out for lunch!" I declared the other weekend.

Mr Unmumsy looked nervous. "Is that really a good idea?"

"Probably not. But it might be fun. Let's risk it."

Bless us. I love our optimism. Three years (and two children) into the parenting adventure and we still have selective memory. I wonder if it's an evolutionary tool? Perhaps, alongside other traumatic childcare memories, we are programmed to gloss over horrific restaurant encounters to ensure we don't all stop at one child. I mean we very nearly were a One and Done household (out of choice) and that would have been fine too, but our gut feeling was always to have another one. In for a penny and all that...

So when we deliberate over having lunch out, we tend to recall with fondness the time the baby slept in Café Nero, or the time we actually finished a pizza because we had bribed the toddler into submission and induced an Ice Cream Factory sugar coma...[side note: does anybody else view 'unlimited drinks/ice-cream' as a challenge? I could barely function after my fifth Pepsi re-fill and second bowl of ice-cream topped with budget dolly mixtures, but I felt that somehow Martin Lewis would have been proud of the food per fiver I'd achieved].

Thank fuck for crayons

But eating out is a bloody mission. Best case scenario is you've packed everything you need in the change bag, the baby is having an actual nap (not on your boob), the café or restaurant is quiet, the food comes out quickly and you have a fully charged iPad or smartphone (loaded with toddler apps, naturally). And, dare I say it, I'm sure a dummy is a must-have at such times. Neither of our boys would take a dummy, and we often encounter 'oh you must be so glad they don't have dummies' comments as though we have achieved something by raising children dummy-less. In actual fact I have often observed the 'life-saver' testimonies of dummy fans and thought 'I could use my life saving right now.'

Worst case scenario for a meal out is that all small children are awake, you have forgotten the raisin boxes and other appropriate bribes, the iPad has crashed, the restaurant is busy and the toddler needs a poo. This is essentially what happened last time we had lunch out. Small children cannot be expected to sit still. I get that. But Jesus. Entertaining two children under three whilst sat around a table in the middle of a busy pub should be added as the final fucking challenge on The Cube. I engaged in no actual conversation with my husband outside of 'I'll have him for a bit so you can finish your sandwich,' 'He's been sick on your shoulder,' 'Can you take him for a poo this time?' and 'Where's the bloody Angry Birds app gone?' To top it off, we paid £40 for the privilege.

Cracking out the emergency crisps

But I know the next time we toy with the idea of lunch out we will forget the spilled drinks, the shouting, the burnt fingers, the protest planking over not being allowed to eat ketchup (on its own, with a sharp knife).

And I think this amnesia is probably for the best.

I don't want us to become a family who doesn't even try. If nothing else the legacy of the table covered in crayon, sick and two thirds of our uneaten meal shows we tried. A+ for effort. And a baby and toddler meltdown outside of the house is still preferable to one inside of it, in my opinion. Not just because the public arena prevents me from shouting "For God's sake will you PACK IT IN! Right, no more treats ever again!" (as I find a treat and put Scooby Doo on) but also because these moments are the things we will laugh about in years to come. And, if truth be told, they are the things I will blog about.

The Unmumsy Mum