There’s nothing quite like mum guilt. You ae never doing the right things / enough of anything. I mean, I felt like this before sometimes, and whilst I also felt like I was on the set of countdown frequently too, there is something about time and small children which means that it either goes really fast or grindingly slow or is too much or never enough.
Dropping baby girl at daycare gets harder and harder. At the same time, work seems to need more and more concentration, we are also trying to finalise a house renovation project and are living in a Center Parcs holiday park until then with very few clothes/things.
This also means my week day at the moment is rather full on. Where we are currently living is about a 25minute cycle (~9km) to baby girls daycare. We can’t move daycare as the waiting lists are insane, up to 2 years, and we consider ourselves incredibly lucky that we managed to get a space at any by transferring from our daycare in Amsterdam to Haarlem with no gap. So, daycare is some distance away.
I’ve been working at home since the pandemic, so my morning is getting babygirl ready, cycling her to daycare and then cycling back ‘home’. That’s an hour. Then trying to cram all the work into the hours I have available, invariably working through lunch or dashing out to buy groceries / put a wash on (no washing machine in the house, only a launderette with 3 functioning machines which are invariably in use in the weird hours the launderette is open). Then by 5pm I need to do the cycle again. Whatever the weather. Because the bus can take up to ~2 hours door to door if you manage to miss one and hiring a car works out about ~20 euros a journey, which is too much.
Baby girl needs dinner around 6/6.15 so I need to leave to collect her latest 5.15. Which is basically what happens when I get ready to go at 5pm, perhaps quickly shoving something in the oven so we have dinner ready when I get back. Then cycle to and from daycare again. Baby girl loves showing me around so sometimes pickup can take 10-15minutes which makes us even later home.
We get home, baby girl invariably starts moaning halfway through the cycle as its a long way even with snacks, and then we get home and its time for dinner. She wants cuddles and for me to play with her and also dinner now now now. Once she has food everything is all well in the world again. By the time she’s finished we have maybe 15-30minutes before we need to start getting ready for bed. Bedtime can take anything from 15 minutes to an hour depending on the day and how tired she is.
Then its at least 8pm, we maybe have an hour or two to relax before bed and then the day starts over.
Writing it out its not really a surprise I feel like I am on a bit of a hamster wheel. I can’t wait to move into our new house which is max 5 minutes from daycare. I will regain 2 hours of my day, and hopefully be able to spend more time with babygirl too.
Because that’s what I am missing this morning. Spent 3 days with her (daycare was cancelled Friday for lack of staff) and she always starts crying and calling mama as I leave (I know it doesn’t last long but still breaks my heart a little each time) and I miss her. I miss her when she’s in bed and I’m downstairs as well. Yes, sometimes she’s a challenge, but honestly, I never knew how incredible having a child would be.
I saw a meme yesterday to a new mum to be which said something along the lines of, ‘don’t be worried, you’ve been tired before, you’ve been in pain before, you’ve been overwhelmed before. These are all things you know how to manage. What nothing can prepare you for is how amazing and incredible and full of joy having kids can be. That part will be entirely new’
Please don’t get me wrong. Motherhood/parenthood is not a bed of roses (or it is if you include the thorns), but baby cuddles, someone looking absolutely delighted to see you, and the amazing way they see the world is indescribable and the greatest gift.
And now back to the day job