What’s in a mum’s mind?

SassyB - 7 Nov 17

Recently I feel like I’ve been inundated with questions; like I am the keeper of all the knowledge, the finder of all the things.

Stuff I have found recently include a lost poppy pin (“I’m sure I gave it to you… oh no, it’s on my bed from where I took it off of my dress earlier”) a lost dance shoe (in the drawer where the other one had been) a lost Halloween costume (shocker – it was in the wardrobe with the rest of the clothes) and, perhaps the best of all, £350 in cash.

The last two were quite a feat of mumming. I wasn’t even in the house when I found them – I was talking my other half and my step daughter through it from my car on the drive home in two separate phone calls, made 20 minutes apart. Two items, 20 minutes, both found within seconds thanks to me and my extensive knowledge of Where Everything Lives In The House.

I generally hear “Where/when/what is…” about 15 times a day. And 14 out of those 15 times I just take an educated guess and get it right. I just know things now I’m a mum. Not useful things, like how to get my toddler to sleep past 5.30am or how to handle a tweenage diva strop, but at some point in the past 18 months I’ve had some kind of supreme knowledge of useless details embedded in my psyche without me even realising. Perhaps it was when I was under anaesthetic for my C-section. Who knows.

What I do know is that it’s exhausting. At any one time I can tell you how many nappies we have in the house (37), the date and time of the next birthday party my step-daughter has been invited to (11^th December, 10am), when we last changed the bed sheets (you don’t want to know that), how much we owe the window cleaner (too much), when the home insurance/Tumble Tots membership/utility bills are up for renewal (because we missed them all), where the costumes are, where the dance uniform is and how to find £350 in a hurry (see above). That’s alongside keeping track of important information and appointments, trying to rebuild my career, planning to see friends and family outside of just for childcare reasons, and failing miserably at keeping a clean house, getting any exercise or spending quality, child-free time with my other half.

It’s probably easier to ask what isn’t in a mum’s mind. Because what I’ve come to realise is that it’s not the actual birthing of a baby, the sleep deprivation or the overall responsibility for another human that takes its toll on you as a mum. It’s ALL OF THE THINKING. Planning, organising and tracking an entire family is hard work. Friends tell me they wake up in the night to make “to do” lists and then beat themselves up because they never get around to doing any of it. It’s why I sit up until midnight most nights, because after the dinners (which I don’t cook, admittedly), the baths, the bedtimes, doing the dishwasher and preparing for the next morning, there’s few precious hours left in the day to sit quietly and not think at all. To not be needed. To not be asked “Where/when/what is…”

So my suggestion is this… mums of the world, we need to unite. Let’s plan some dates, organise a rota and keep a track of who’s going to be where, and when they’ll be there (we could maybe sort out some kind of car share too?) Then maybe, just maybe, with some careful time management and prioritisation we could help each other to take a few minutes off from our own brains.

But then again, it might just be one more thing to think about.

SassyB

Mum to one and step-mum to another, working and living in the Midlands. I used to write about other people, now I'm trying my hand at writing about myself. Pretty much only had a baby so I could dress someone up in a costume at least once a week...

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