My Crisis of the Day

Today has been, to put it mildly, challenging.

It didn’t start fantastically when the wailing alarm clock that is our 2 year old woke us up in the pitch blackness of 5.30am and demanded play. A mere 2 hours after I had managed to settle his yelling brother back to sleep and an hour after the dog had woken us with her whining. Not a wonderfully rested household which doesn’t bode well for a harmonious and relaxing day (you’ll not get far with that attitude I can hear my inner mother say)

Things turned deliciously for the better when Mr Toddler decided he wanted to cook breakfast and brandished the waffle iron at me that he had just discovered buried in a drawer (the contents of which were now strewn throughout the house and garden). It’s been ages since we’ve waffled and we had a fab time mixing the batter and pouring it in to cook – and let me tell you they were some of the best waffles I’ve ever eaten. With the baby asleep, everyone well fed and the mini tornado settled down to watch an episode of Fireman Sam I was clearly lulled in to a false sense of security and decided a trip out was the way to go. Our toddler has been wearing his goggles and armbands around the house and to bed the past few days so I thought it might be time to take him swimming again. We have the loveliest neighbours in the world who let us use their pool whenever we want – but it’s almost Winter here and despite still being about 25 degrees I don’t want the baby (me) getting cold in the water.

So off we went to the public, heated pool (of course getting lost on the way)  and all was going swimmingly (ha!) until Mr 9 month old decided to headbutt the wall he was holding on to for absolutely no reason and without warning. Of course it was one of those pebble dashed walls that take a layer of skin off your eyes just by looking at it so the damage was immense. So. Much. Blood.

Meanwhile the toddler is still pretending to be Fireman Sam rescuing Norman Price from the sea and I fleetingly hope that once I wipe the blood off baby’s lip and stop him crying the damage won’t be as bad as I’d thought. But I look again and it’s so terrible I’m sure he’s bitten all the way through – so now comes 20 minutes of trying to coax Fireman Sam out of the pool, get both of them dried and dressed over the wailing and get baby some medical attention. And then I realise I’ve brought no towels. So I’m using a size zero Bonds singlet to try and dry all of us whilst balancing wailing baby on my hip as there’s nowhere to safely put him down. When it comes to getting toddler’s nappy on I concede defeat and am forced to stand baby on the ground, where he promptly slips again and ends up banging his already injured face  (wet baby + public baths changing room floor = baby who looks as hairy as his dad. Horrifying)

I’m about to sit on the floor and join him in his sobbing when we are rescued by our own hero next door. A lovely lady in a towel (was it just my imagination or was it flowing behind her like a cape..) came over brandishing not one but two icy poles. Genius. Instant calm. Instant pain relief. And then she gives me a lovely smile and tells me of the times her kamikaze daughter had landed herself in hospital, concussed, massively injured – even crashing her bike to the point of hospitalisation on Christmas Day. This mum is an angel. She has instantly saved my sanity and sorted my kids out in a flash. Everything is easier again from then on – we get in the car and make it to our GP who sees us straight away and tells us that it’s just a superficial wound and it will be fine. We head to the food court and share chips and ice cream for lunch to make us all feel better. Not one of my finest parenting moments and I’m trying desperately not to catch the eye of the super healthy looking mum sharing a salad with her offspring at the table next to us. Who knows though –  maybe they had donuts for breakfast.

As I walk out of the shops my toddler is in his pushchair, my baby is in his carrier and we’re all smiling and looking pretty pleased with ourselves (that’s what ice cream for lunch will do for you). I glance up and see another mum who’s having a full on brawl with her toddler whilst trying to juggle shopping and a pram and she sees me in my rare moment of sanity and I’m sure I see a glint of awe in her eye. How I wish she could have seen me 5 minutes or an hour ago although i’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be naive enough to think that anyone with kids finds it easy all the time.

All too often it’s the good side that gets paraded thanks to social media but it’s the batshit crazy moments that don’t get seen or shared as often.

So this was today’s crisis. There’ll be more of them tomorrow and next week and next year but the fun in between will keep us all happy.

And as mums if we keep on sharing our hellish-I want to start drinking at 10am – moments with each other as well as sharing the picture perfect ones we see on Facebook every day we’ll keep each other sane.

What was your crisis today?

Still smiling despite his injuries