Behind the smiley school runs, it can be a real struggle

‘YOU’RE doing amazing.” “Wow, you’re like super-mum.” “You make it look so easy…” Just three sentences I’ve had said to me in the past few weeks. It’s lovely, of course, to have these words said to me. It makes me smile, it makes me laugh, but most of all... it makes me wonder what people really think because “doing amazing” is far from how I feel I’m doing most days.

The truth is? I’ve been struggling a little more than what people can perceive since I’ve had Rose. They don’t really see past the smiley school runs where I’m dashing back and forth with the baby and Archie; the snapshots through social media where I like to think I’m brutally honest, but still they pose the “best” photo. The “nicest” of the pick. Where I’m honest enough to get a laugh or a “oh goodness, and me” but lacking in that rawness that I’ve been feeling the past month or so.

I guess I’ve been a bit quiet about how hard I’ve found it with two children because I’ve spent the past nine months so desperately ill with hyperemesis gravidarum that I vowed I’d never moan, I’d never cry, I’d never find anything as difficult as I found pregnancy. I feel like I can’t moan or say I find anything hard because I did all my moaning and being ill for those months and now I must be happy, smiley, positive Robyn who can’t find this hard as well! It sounds odd to say it out loud but I feel that I can’t really admit if I’m having a day where I’m overwhelmed, because as a mum, I wanted this. I wanted another baby and I swore I’d be “brand-new” when she arrived because nothing is as bad as hyperemesis. And it’s true. It’s not as bad as hyperemesis, because this is a phase and it passes and although the feeling of being overwhelmed and emotions are a lot (and wow... they are), I can still function. I can still get up, drink coffee, drive Archie around and be present. I missed nine months of life when I was pregnant and it’s not the same now of course, but I feel guilty for admitting that I have days where I struggle with everything going on.

It’s a really tough moment to admit that things are a bit on top of you. I’ve always been very good at vocalising my overwhelm but the past few weeks I’ve buried it hard. I’ve buried it deep because Archie needed me, Rose needed me, I was too scared to admit to James that I find it hard because I swore I’d be fine as soon as she arrived. But the truth is, being the only one getting up all night every night, doing the feeds, the early mornings, the screaming fits, the tears and overtiredness and then being “perky” enough to get Archie sorted and keep up with absolutely everything I do with him, is tough. The tiredness didn’t hit me for about three and a half months (I must have been on autopilot) but it’s hit me hard now!

It doesn’t help that gorgeous little Rose is a screamer. She screams. A lot. And the past two weeks it’s really got to me because Archie never wailed like she does. She’s been fed, changed, cuddled, napped and here we are still screaming and I haven’t got a clue why. I range from laughing at it, to crying. And I’ve cried a lot the past few days, I’ll be honest. I hold it together and then I find myself just sitting on the stairs and having a huge cry. I’m a big advocate for crying, I believe it to be very cathartic but when you’re in the moment. The only way for me to vocalise it, is that I feel very overwhelmed! I’ve Googled “fourmonth-old crying” and then told myself that she’s a baby and they cry! I’ve Googled “how much crying is too much crying” and tried to figure out what’s wrong with her, then realise that, again, she’s a baby!

I feel like some days I drop Archie off at school and then I spend five hours trying to soothe and calm Rose down, and I wonder if we’ll ever get past this “fussy” phase. I know we will, and I know it will all pass; and trust me... I’m trying so hard to appreciate the moments, and I really am, appreciating them that is. For the most part anyway. I soak up her smell and cuddle in the middle of the night, I’m soaking up Archie creeping into my bed at 5am

so he can get in on the cuddle action. But the past few weeks have just been tough! It’s our job isn’t it, as mums, to be cleaning, tidying, organising, remembering every element of our kids’ lives so that things run “perfectly”. But they’re not perfect. These moments aren’t perfect. And that’s OK.

The other night it was after bathtime, so it must have been around 6.30pm I imagine, and I was trying to get Rose to sleep while Archie was drawing and playing in my room while Harry Potter was on in the background (standard!).

I went to get a photo from my camera roll to send to someone (probably a screen grab of something funny to send to Claire and Nicola) and saw a load of photos like the one here in this column. There were about 20 of the same kind of shot in the camera roll from about 20 minutes before while I was getting Rose to sleep. Archie had taken them of me/us without me knowing.

And there in that moment, it reminded me of everything we need to know.

It’s not about looking great (thank goodness because I’d lose that competition for sure) or getting a perfect photo. Or telling everyone how amazing and brilliant things are. It’s not about pretending things are amazing, it’s about really trying to live in the moment and acknowledge how we feel.

We are perfect to our little ones in the right here and right now and they love us and the moments that feel mundane. They love us even when I’ve sat on the stairs after they’ve fallen asleep and cried because I feel like I haven’t done it all that day, and my own pressure has got to me!

I asked Archie why he took these photos and why there are so many and he said he wanted to remember it forever.

That moment. Of us. In the bedroom, doing absolutely nothing special but it was the most special moment to him.

Rose was screaming of course. And I guess Archie wouldn’t have it any other way.