7. Musical Beds

A friend of mine once said, "Any home with a child under the age of 3 is in a constant state of crisis." My my, how true those words are. Today has been one of those really special days. The sort of days that make you wonder what you did wrong in order to deserve such an angry toddler. I have been shouted at by mine all day. I have tried desperately to feed it - I lost that battle. I have tried to keep it clean - I lost that battle too. In the end, her father managed to bath AND wash her hair without screams emerging from our small dictator akin to that of a herd of pigs being slaughtered. Every day is a new one, filled with many unknowns. Will the child eat toast with melrose cheese today, or is today an anti-toast day? Will yoghurt be imbibed or shunned today? No one knows. Every 24 hours holds in its hands a new adventure in the art of war, known in our household as “mealtime". I envy those mothers who have offspring that simply eat whatever they are given. It is a mind-blowing concept for me. I have spoken about this before, and I’m sure it will continue to be a topic for my very tired cranial cavity until that great and glorious day when Nevaeh Shiloh does what seems to be impossible - opens her mouth, chews and swallows without complaining, heaving, gagging, coughing, flapping or shouting. That, dear readers, is my dream! Oh, and being able to go to the toilet without an audience. Especially when that audience is short and tries to throw Duplo blocks into the toilet through my legs. Thankfully I don’t have anything that vaguely resembles a thigh gap, and as such, all Duplo and other items in our house have been saved from having a swim in the porcelain bowl. Back to the point of this little ramble, which is bedtime.

If a seal and a dolphin had a baby, that magical, flopping, thrashing creature is what sleeps in my bed. Let’s call it “Sealphin". It lands on my head in the midnight hours, kicks the small of my back and sticks its fingers in my eyes with an intense fury as it is overcome with desire for (another) bottle. Yes, thank you, most magnificent mother who has read every baby / toddler book ever written (for every mammal species known to man) - I do in fact know that my toddler should not be having 4 bottles a night. I am painfully aware of that fact as I am awoken throughout the night by the jungle-like moosing sounds of a milk desperate creature. I do also know that co-sleeping is frowned upon by the more magnificent of our species. However, the dregs of my severely depleted serotonin supply cross into the “DANGER - RED ZONE!" when I am having to get up and go to my daughter’s cot every hour of the night. Unless you’ve had a bad sleeper, I don’t think you can understand the desperation you feel at 2:23am when you are making your 12th trip into your offspring’s room. Most nights we end up playing musical beds. Sid and I start off in our own bed, and Nevaeh in her cot. And within a few hours, the fun and games begin. I would do anything to get my child to sleep through the night. Literally anything. At times I have been so desperate that if you told me I had to find a toxic Amazonian frog and milk it using my toes, I would have done so if it meant that somehow Nevaeh would sleep through the night. Heck, I would do that if it meant she would sleep for 4 hours in a row. I wish I was joking. As someone who is severely arachnophobic, I can attest with full truth that I would rather be sent to a tarantula farm and have to feed those hideous creatures from the bowels of Satan’s pet shop WITHOUT GLOVES than have to fight my way through another month of bad sleep. I know that this probably sounds terribly dramatic to the moms who have 5 year olds, or to the ones who had small people that slept through from 2 weeks old. However, if there is anyone else out there who, like me, fantasizes about getting 6 hours of solid sleep in a row, just know that you are not alone. 

I have spent a lot of time and energy being morose about my mothering skills. All you have to do is breeze through social media (while you are on the toilet if the husband is home and you can hide in there for 4 minutes) to feel really awful about yourself. You’ll always see Supermom with the 4 children who is handling life spectacularly well. Her hair is clean. Her nails are painted. Her baby belly is no longer a feature. She looks like she just stepped out of Vogue’s “Spring Fresh” edition. She is making a 23 layered rainbow cake for her child’s birthday to accompany the puff pastry buffet she baked herself at 3 that morning. Her life is like a photo shoot. Her baby drinks kale and breastmilk smoothies in a non-BPA, organic, non-plastic glass cup made from the world-famous glassblowing virtuoso of the Swiss Alps. Her playdough is homemade and safer to eat than anything Woolworths offers for children. She has fruit trees growing in her yard and by the sweat of her own brow, she plucks the fruit and creates delectable wonders such as the world has never seen. And then there’s me. I try shovel Squish pear down my child’s gullet and pray that she will swallow it. A friend did my daughter’s birthday cake because I can’t bake. My hair used to be clean all the time… Now, it is a day of great victory if I manage to wash it. In short, all I have to do is scroll through my phone to feel like an abject failure. This is why comparison is a killer. My friend always says, “You do you.” And I think I am finally starting to realize how important that is, especially with mothering. My little girl is happy. She is loved. She is fed. She is clean (mostly). She dances and claps and sings with sheer ecstasy everyday. She likes to run around naked except for her sneakers and headphones. She is ALIVE! I’m not Supermom. Not at all. I never will be. But I know I do my very best with Nevaeh and I know she knows that she is adored. I’m not sure that I could actually ask for much more than that. Our little family isn’t perfect, and we play musical beds most nights, but we are together and we certainly have love (even when we don’t have kale).