No Sick Days

Anyone who says being a stay at home parent is the "best job in the world” is talking rubbish. The hours are long, there is no annual leave, it pays well below minimum wage and worst of all THERE ARE NO SICK DAYS. I’m not saying there aren’t benefits; I’m often rewarded with a gift of half chewed food or a request for cuddles…at 3 in the morning. I enjoy the luxury of getting to go to the park on warm sunny days. No so much on the freezing cold, wet days while my little one spends 27 minutes playing with a muddy stick. 

The title text of "NOT the best job in the world" on a faded background with a blue rug covered in ELC Happyland toys

The best job in the world would surely be one with short hours, interesting work and which gave you lots of money you could then spend on a housekeeper and a part time nanny. The nanny could do the early mornings and maybe the night wake ups too. Yes I know those cuddles are precious, but I am so sleep deprived at the moment I would trade them in for a 3 hour stretch of sleep.

In all seriousness I love being a stay at home mum most of the time, but today I’m tired and I have a sore throat. My body is fighting off a cold and what I need right now is rest. And maybe some chocolate. In bed. It isn’t going to happen though. Little was playing on her own for a few hours this morning which was great, but then I had to catch the grumpy cat (who hadn’t been allowed out) to take her to the vets for her check up. Once home I opened the back door to let the cat out, but the toddler escaped instead and she started playing noisily with her mud kitchen. Knowing the next door neighbour was probably asleep after a night shift I carried Little inside to take her for her nap. The screaming as I took her away from her kitchen was much louder than the banging of the pots and pans. 

Little has finally calmed down and is napping so I’m sitting on the sofa. I would have loved a nap myself, but I knew the Ocado delivery was imminent. On the plus side the food shop brought with it some new tea bags to try, but no chocolate. Why didn’t I buy any chocolate??? Let’s ignore that being dairy free severely limits the amount of nice chocolate available. 

A white mug with mint tea in, a triangular tea bag and a box of Loyd The Magic Experience Peppermint and Spearmint tea
5 minutes peace and some new tea to try

I’m going to enjoy this brief silence while it lasts. No tidying today. The washing basket can continue to overflow for another day. I know I am ruining Little’s fun game of taking all the toys out of the toy box, but she’ll just have to play with the actual toys instead. Mumma is having 5 minutes peace.

Pretty soon it will be time to pick up big sister from school and before we do that we need to make dinner and buy petrol. After the school run we have an hour to eat and find M’s swimming kit before getting both girls out the house to sit in traffic and hopefully arrive at swimming early. The options seem to be arrive early and wait around or late and miss the lesson, early seems like the better deal.

Half an hour sat on the side of the pool could be relaxing if it wasn’t for constantly biting my tongue to stop telling M to listen to her swimming teacher and trying to stop the probably over tired toddler climbing the steps and attempting to dive in to the pool. A quick change and then it’s the race to get home without either girl falling asleep. This was managed successfully last week after the first lesson because I forgot to bring any food so big sister spent the whole journey complaining of hunger which wasn’t satisfied by the few sweets I found in the glove box. Funny how she claimed she wasn’t hungry as soon as she got home.

If they both stay awake then I should be able to get them to bed at a good time. In the more likely event that at least Little will have succumbed to a snooze who knows how late they will stay up? Big sister refuses to go to bed before her sister. I might get a little more time to collapse on the sofa this evening. I might even get to have a chat with my partner who will arrive home to find the house looking like it has had a hurricane blow though it, 2 children asleep and me sulking on the sofa. 

If one or both children are refusing to sleep then it will be straight to bed for me by the time they finally snooze. Except I probably won’t be able to sleep due to my running nose, sore throat and aching body. At least lying on my own a in comfortable king size bed is a relaxing way to wait for the first wake up from the toddler. Once she’s awake she’ll want milk and I know I’ll be too tired to stay awake to feed her, so I’ll take her into bed with me, we’ll snuggle next to each other and she can feed. And I can sleep. Not in the most comfortable of positions, but I can get some sleep.

Maybe tomorrow I can have a nap.

2 comments

Thanks for your comment (unless it's spam in which case, why?)