One of those days
It’s been one of those days. The kind where I finally admit defeat to your restless dawn tossing and turning at 5.45am. The kind where you stubbornly turn your head at every attempt to spoonfeed breakfast, and then fling the bits on your tray across the carpet. The kind where every nappy change is like wrestling a prize pig to the ground and involves just as much shit.
We’ve had that insatiable exploring instinct of yours leading to fingers trapped in drawers, and tears from behind closed doors that you yourself shut behind you. We’ve had whines escalate to screaming fits in the 30 seconds it took me to hop in and out of the shower. We’ve had bookcases emptied and pages ripped, and every pot, pan and pyrex dish (heavy little bastards) in and out of the cupboards more times than a hokey-kokey at a kids’ party.
You resisted your lunchtime nap – the sacred hour that’s meant to furnish me with enough patience to not lose my shit until Daddy gets home. You refused a snooze in the stroller too – despite the heat, despite the gentle rolling of the river trail, despite the slow drone of freeway traffic rivalling the most effective of white noise machines. Today it just was not to be.
On days like today, I can’t help but wonder whether the struggle would be so real if I wasn’t a faraway mum. If I could whisk you off to Granny and Grandpa’s, where you’d be welcomed by arms that weren’t already exhausted from cradling and rocking and carrying. Where I could temporarily exchange you for a hot cup of tea and 20 minutes peace in the garden we dream of from our high-rise apartment here. I wonder whether we’d even be having one of these days if you hadn’t been sleeping in a travel cot in Daddy’s closet for the best part of the last six weeks, whilst visitors from home take over your room. I wonder what all this upheaval is doing to your little body, and remind myself it’s no surprise you’re so out of sorts.
But, if we weren’t a faraway family, we wouldn’t have the city at our doorstep for midday meanderings. We wouldn’t nearly so often have the sun on our backs as we stroll the sidewalks, pleading for sleep to come. We wouldn’t have Daddy at work a mere ten-minute walk from our apartment, and home in time for bath and bed. On days like today, I have to stop my mind from wishing and hoping the hours away, and enjoy the weeks and months we have here instead. We’ll be back in that garden soon enough. The days won’t always be like this.
N.B. I wrote this after a particularly trying day a few months ago, but we've had a few more of these types of days recently. Re-finding it reminded me that these days go as quickly as they come - everything really is just a phase (even if it's hard to remember that when you're in the thick of it)!
