Every day I am pretty sure I do at least one thing wrong. Most days I do more. I used to think I was alone, until I talked to other parents who were honest. Here is a place for more parents to feel less alone, and more "good enough".

Thursday 8 November 2012

It's only a few months until February....................

It appears that there is only so much information a head can hold until it starts to revolt. I think my head is starting to get a bit full.

I know that in a few months, everything will be fine and settled or at least on it's way to being, but sometimes knowing that isn't enough to get you through without a little bit of stress on the way. And it annoys me when if I talk about being stressed or needing a rest, I get comments about how having a third baby will be harder and he will be with me all the time and I shouldn't have planned to have him if I couldn't cope, blah blah blah.

For one thing, who said I couldn't cope?? Needing to vent, a hug, chocolate, some sleep, time to eat, somewhere to offload, that doesn't mean you are not coping, it just means you are ensuring that you CAN cope. I can cope, my children are fed, James and I am mostly fed, we have clean clothes (albeit often from the laundry basket rather than the drawers), all of the bills are paid and on time, the children get to school on time and with all letters signed and money sent and according to the teachers are delightful and happy, and sometimes I can even see the living room floor!!

Plus it's not about having a third child. It's about having everything happen at once, regardless of any other commitments you might have. If you thought about what could or might happen and what you could cope with and should do and commit to in case various scenarios happened, you would remain locked in your childhood bedroom in your parents house I would imagine. Right now, I often feel that I just don't have the time to be pregnant, and that this pregnancy is surplus to requirements in this current situation. I hasten to add that it is not surplus to requirements in my feelings or James or the children or anybody else. I simply mean that everything is ever so busy that to be honest this pregnancy has passed in a blur and I have somehow reached 31 weeks without even realising (possibly because I miscalculated and did think I was a week behind this......), and that there is so much going on right now in my family that I forget I am pregnant half the time, never mind everybody else.

I haven't a clue when we are moving house. We know we have a house to move to, which is something to be grateful for as so many people are struggling to find somewhere affordable that meets their needs right now, so I know I am lucky in that respect. We know it is most likely some time in the next 2-3 months, and that we can start packing things we don't use often and store them at my parents. Which, on the surface, is great, lots of time to prepare and save up and get organised, right?

The fact that those 2-3 months also include Christmas, the current lease renewal date, and the baby's due date are a slight issue. The fact that my Dad would usually help us move house and is due in for an operation in the next 2-3 months is also an issue. And that my Nana is in a rehab home and my Mum and Aunties are spending the majority of their time either visiting her to make sure she is looked after properly (because she isn't being), or trying to figure out where she will go when she comes out, is another slight issue in this plan. Add to this scenario that my 3 week old niece has just been diagnosed with CF meaning my sister is rather overloaded with information and tired, and that I have to go for pointless genetic counselling (pointless since I have already talked it over with my sister and James and my GP and am not dumb and the NHS is supposed to be short of money) in order to be able to be tested to see if I am a carrier. And that Adam would quite like to meet his biological dad soon please, if you don't mind, just to make sure he's not dead because somebody at school said he might be dead, and that would be sad if he didn't meet him before he died. Oh and then there is the news that my little brother is due home in a couple of weeks, great news and Adam is ecstatic, but means another heap of emotions in my head and another things currently being sorted out and paper-worked and planned by the family. So yes, it's kind of a busy 2-3 months. And I'm kind of tired. And I'm tired of people telling me that I'm tired and doing too much and they're worried I'm not coping.......................but not actually doing anything to help, and instead making it sound like it is all my own fault, when actually no, I wasn't aware that this was all going to happen when I got pregnant and even if I was single with no children I would imagine it would've all been a bit stressful and busy anyway.

The general gist of this is, don't ask somebody if they are ok if you don't want to know the answer, or if when they do tell you they are tired you are simply going to start telling them how tired you are yourself or how tired everybody they know is. And that it's probably not a good idea to decide to get pregnant when everything seems to be quiet because it will probably all explode shortly afterwards and you'll just mostly end up forgetting you are pregnant. And that just because somebody needs to vent and is tired, doesn't mean they can't cope or that they have too many children, it just means that too many things are happening and they need to let some of it out of their head, and if they didn't then THAT would mean they weren't coping, because it is BAD for your health to keep it all inside and not vent and THAT is when you stop looking after yourself and your children and not coping.

I am not complaining, just in case anybody gets the wrong idea. Ever since I was little, I have loved that my family is big and it is messy and it is often quite like a soap opera. Because it means that there is always somebody there, and always some comedy storyline behind the main tragic and stressful ones. It means that Christmas is busy and fun and that there is always somebody somewhere who can pick the children up from school if you pass out on a bus. It means I have lived in houses with not much heating and thick jumpers and moved from bedroom to bedroom as people moved out and moved in, and I truly appreciate being able to let the children buy chocolate on the way home from school, but still want them to know that playing at the park is cheaper and healthier than constantly buying new xbox games. It means that there is always somebody else taking the limelight or the attention so you can just quietly get on with your own life without feeling like you need to please everybody. And one day, I am looking forward to having my children and grandchildren around keeping me busy and needing money and help with childcare and advice on how to deal with mixed up 9 year olds and wild 3 year olds. Because in my family, somebody, somewhere, will have been through it and know what they are talking about, and that is always a useful resource. But that doesn't mean that everything is roses and I don't need a bit of a rest, or that they don't.

Just give people a break. You don't know everything about a person, remember that. Half the time they don't  even know everything about themselves.

And because life is crazy, and this is totally irrelevant to this entire blog post, this is the song that is in my head right now. I guess because it is fun and like a bit of a whirlwind and to be honest doesn't make any sense at all the lyrics are pretty much a jumble of whatever they fancied saying, like life and my family, you have to just go with it and get on with it because what else is there for any of us to do.