Don’t Panic!!!

Alexis Strum - 16 Sep 15

So, my precious little bundle of petits-filous-smelling joy has started to move. When I say move, I mean crawl, stand and wiggle; a little earlier than planned, no less (how dare she not consult me or the baby apps?!!). Other mothers would be delighted to hear her thud thud thud across the room, to see the carpet burns on her bare knees (come on, it’s too hot even for me to wear clothes in this weather). They would rejoice to see her stand, using Mummy’s leg (or face) as a crutch with which to prop herself upright. Not me. I. AM. PANICKING!

I was just getting into that nice little sedentary thing she had going on. The being able to just shove her on the bed and have her simply hang out there with mummy, chillaxing, whilst I read about the Kardashians or maybe, as a treat, blow-dried my hair on the one occasion a month where she actually allows me time to wash it in the first place.That was brilliant.

However, these days, putting her on the bed is fast resembling  a speedy death drop game rivalled only by The Crystal Maze or Indiana Jones’ famous Leap Of Faith.The girl likes to moooove. Now that she is mobile comes the ‘Hard Part’, as millions of mothers had warned me, always written in capitals or said with an empathetic head tilt, making those already pretty difficult first few raw months look like child’s play. I’ve started sending text messages without punctuation and its scaring me…’hiitsalexiscanyoucomeroundnowpleasehelp’. Send.

I spend my days in a sweating fit, screaming out nouns at my equally frazzled husband (‘Chair!’, ‘Jumperoo!’, ‘Curtainssssssss!’), chasing the little one (LO) around the obstacle course aka THE DEATH TRAP that is my living room. Yes, I suppose one positive is that it IS all good exercise. Is this what supermodels mean when they say that ‘the weight just fell off, running around after the kids’? Cos I am REALLY running. On nerves, haribo and adrenalin mainly. I run so fast across a small contained space these days that I swear I can see carpet burns on the actual carpet. And yet I’m always smiling, so as not to panic the LO, but in that crazed, sweaty way which is all teeth and doesn’t meet the eyes, like a kids TV presenter whose autocue just got stuck in the middle of a live broadcast.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a small amount of pride in the fact that at 9 months, my little madam is speedy Gonzalez-ing her way around and cruisin’ (not THAT kind of ‘cruisin’!) the sofas way before some other babies of her age BUT it’s the months ahead; the cycle of falling and learning, that is giving me night sweats. I hate seeing her fall. It’s torture. And this is from someone who doesn’t cry often, not even at Christmas ads on TV. I know I’m supposed to let her learn by falling, but I am torn between a mother’s desire to comfort and cosset and a pragmatist’s need to let her ruddy well get on with it.

I find myself sensing danger in the most everyday of everyday items (cue more nouns plus exclamation marks): Pen! Button! Stiletto! (Ok, maybe more ‘Wedge Shoe!’ but its two words and I wanted you to think I was glamorous and didn’t still have to dress to accommodate cankles). And the fear doesn’t stop when I go to sleep; the nightmares are horrific and started long before she even arrived in this world.

I always had a vision that pregnancy would be this Vaseline-across-the-lens hippy barefooted wondrousness where the changes in my body would be so great that I would actually physically morph into some sort of Gwyneth/Kate Hudson hybrid in a floaty Melissa Odabash kaftan. It wasn’t. In fact, it kicked off an onslaught of Preggomares interrupting my sleep which have never quite abated, even now that baby is ex utero. If I’m not dreaming that someone has eaten/run away with my baby then it isn’t a day ending in a–y.

I suppose I should mention at this point that Panic and I go back a long way when it comes to me and babies….Panicking about avoiding getting pregnant in my teens and twenties turned to panicking about becoming pregnant in my thirties. When I finally did, Panic hung on in there like an uninvited guest at a smear test. I think in some deep part of me I have convinced myself that She helps make me a good mother. Hmmmm.

Worry, in small quantities is no bad thing. It is part of our arsenal of survival strategies as humans after all (along with avoiding the tube at rush hour or Facebook after a messy breakup) and surely, being a mum to an almost toddler is the only time in your life when you are SUPPOSED to worry all the time, right? So for now I can and will indulge it, but once the LO is up and running, literally, I promise myself to let go a little. If depression is a black dog, then worry is a brown rat, gnawing away at any already frayed edges and panic is a pesky wasp you just cannot swat. But at some point, you have to call pest control.

So yes, I worry that the worry won’t stop but there are moments of peace, however fleeting. A trip to a soft play thingy the other day was so enjoyable. For a few brief moments I looked around its primary coloured sponginess and actually let go. Yup, I exhaled, embracing the marvellous vacuum of safety. I turned to my husband to say, ‘isn’t it nice not to have to worry?’ and bam, just at that moment, one of the other kids knocked my LO off a spongy tower with a flick of his dribbly hand. Neither in softness nor in play. I was there in milliseconds, wire-sprung and ready for action.

Worry had done some good after all- she’d primed me for autopilot moments like these with all of her exhaustive (and not always asked for) training. And the LO was fine after much screaming, snot and a big hug (and that was just me).

So you see, you never really can relax, neither should you. But things will happen, your baby will hurt herself/himself and then, hopefully, everything will be ok. And if you think you are a worrier or a panicker, you are not alone. We walk among you, well, probably more crouching and cringing than actually walking, as walking is far far too dangerous…

It’s funny, but my own mum used to reassure me with the words, ‘Don’t worry, baby!’ and I always dismissed it as just ‘Mummy PR’, a motherly aphorism designed to placate me but now I realize, even back then, she was giving me some very prudent advice…

Alexis Strum

Alexis Strum is a writer/performer/mother from London currently appearing in BBC1's 'Wannabe' and Sky One's 'Sick Note'. She has just completed her first memoir, 'The Time I Almost...' and runs the event and blog of the same name www.thetimeialmost.com all about her former life as an Almost Popstar. Alexis enjoys building bears, singing 'Finger Family' and making dens- all with her daughter, of course! Her life goals are to get her book published and marry Channing Tatum.

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