Babies are overrated

Day 2 of blogtober and I am dosed up on some pretty hefty painkillers thanks to what Google tells me is a trapped nerve in my foot (medial planter nerve to be exact)

I couldn’t get an appointment with a GP even if I wanted one so instead I am treating it with a lively dose of ibuprofen 3 times a day, rest and lots of ice packs. If it goes purple or some other equally alarming colour I will call someone.

Blogtober marches on though and today’s prompt is Babies. 

Babies is the title of one of my very favourite songs by Pulp and also what we refer to very young humans as. I have produced 3 babies in my lifetime and 3 is definitely my magic number. I am so over babies.

People don’t like it when you say that. I sometimes feel, as a woman, that I am expected to want to produce a never ending conveyor belt style stream of babies. After giving birth to each of my little darlings someone would ask “so, when’s the next one?”. As though I would want to jump straight back onto the morning sickness inducing, oedema bringing fun train that is pregnancy. Some people glow in pregnancy. I did not.

A much younger me with a much younger Col

The truth is that I had a taste of life after babies before Moose came along. With Bess and Col both at school I had 6 hours a day to myself to pour into my business. I could decide on a whim to go for coffee with a friend or nip to the shops, and I did.

I could sleep in on Sundays safe in the knowledge that my children were able to make their own breakfast quite happily without needing me at their side.

Days out got interesting again. We could play board games and computer games together. It was actually more fun!

And then there was Moose.

Before Moose I thought our family was complete. I had as many children as I had hands and that, I thought, was enough. Fate (or whatever you want to call it) had other ideas and we found ourselves outnumbered and surviving on no sleep once againand in the company of a little boy who fills my heart to the brim. Who really does complete us.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my children now and I loved them as babies. When Col was a baby he had the cutest little feet which you wanted to nuzzle because it made both of us giggle – you do NOT want to touch teenage Cols feet. Trust me. Now we giggle over our shared love of certain TV programmes. Bess was so cute as a baby, but as she grows toward adolescence she honestly takes my breath away with her brilliance.

All I am saying is that as much as we all love babies, there is a lot to be said for a bit more sleep and for children who are able to tell you with words what the hell it is they want.

So, if you are a parent who is coming to realise that your baby is really not a baby any longer. Don’t stress. The best is yet to come.