You know how some days, life just feels rather shite-like, and you wish you could crawl under a sizeable rock and just stay there until everyone stops wanting something from you and it’s quiet and you can just do what you like, quietly, with alcohol and a gentle rocking motion? Yes, well, that has been a large portion of today, somehow. It started with a wet (big) bed and a child who thought this tremendous fun, and it ended with a shouty mama who just felt done: done with being patient, done with making light of it all, done with keeping it in perspective, whatever ‘it’ might be, done with being reasonable. So, there was shouting, and dramatic sweeping-out-of-roomness, and tears, and despair, and tiredness, and the constant wondering if we haven’t just done something completely insane and utterly defeating in deciding to prolong this particular brand of agony with another infant.
But.
After the tears were wiped away, and there had been an hour’s sleep in the big bed (which, only minutes before, had become forbidden territory ‘full stop!’), and some cake had been eaten, and some chai had been drunk, and some moaning had taken place, and some hugs had been given, the sun came out from the clouds and Quercus stopped looking at me as if I might bite at any moment.

Being a gentle parent, who listens without pestering, who gives space for my child to just be, who offers suggestions but not strictures, is something to which I aspire. As the child of a very consequences-driven father whose approach was almost Victorian, I know only too well how that set-up works, and it’s not something I want for our family, or for myself as a parent. I don’t want my child to do as I ask because he/she/it is afraid of me, but because they can see that I’m being reasonable, and that the chances are that I wouldn’t ask otherwise. I want he/she/it to feel able to talk to me, without thinking I’ll jump on them, and without worrying that I’ll belittle their feelings, be they ever so daft in nature. I prefer to wait those few extra minutes while the small girl finishes what she’s doing, rather than expecting her to hop to it when I command her to do so. I prefer to reason with her, and point out the pros and cons of various choices rather than just issuing directives. I value co-operation, and talking, and listening, and dwelling on the positive.

For the most part, I think I do OK, but sometimes, the anger that wells up in me scares even me. This pregnancy has certainly made life interesting. I worry about this. (Astonishing, no?) I feel that the second baby is getting a very second-rate experience – no hours of meditation spent imagining positive birth situations, no pregnancy yoga classes, no active birth sessions – and that the small girl is copping the flak of my flaring hormones and resulting bad moods. I am grumpy because the pelvic girdle pain, while manageable, is a constant presence these days, and somehow, in the space of only a few months, has assumed such a confident aspect that I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t feel like this. (I should add that I’m seeing a McTimoney chiropractor who has made me wonder if there might be room for it to improve; after the second session, I had nearly an hour of pain-free pottering in the garden, which was like sunshine after a thunderstorm.) And I snap because I’m grumpy, even though I know that doing so will only make the situation worse, will push buttons that I – and everyone else! – would really rather not push, meaning that the crying will last longer, the demands will escalate, the crisis will blacken, for lo! the Armageddon is nigh, and it is Mama-shaped.

At the moment, two things are making me work very hard. The first is broken nights, which continue to be the majority for us. The small girl has never been particularly consistent in her sleep patterns, and while sometimes I am zen about this, and can see that when she’s fourteen I’ll probably be using a pitch-fork to get her out of her pit, these days are proving extra-challenging. It doesn’t help that, despite his best efforts, Quercus remains generally unacceptable at night. It is me who must tuck the quilt in, administer that last kiss, move that hot-water bottle, or reposition the squirrel, and Quercus entering the room only seems to enrage the beast, causing screaming so horrendous that it just doesn’t seem worth it to even go there, really. We have had sessions where we switched for a few weeks, enduring the screaming in a bid to get to the other side and there find sleep nirvana, but as the time goes by and we are floored by the need for sleep and the knowledge that having only one parent on night-duty 100% of the time is just not workable, bit by bit, I end up going in at night and then before you know it, we’re back at square one, and Night-time Daddy Is Evil. I become generous in my sleep-drunk state – having had unbroken nights, I forget the frustrations, and muster myself to respond, and then we end up in the same cycle once again.
I don’t know how this will work when the new baby appears in August, and, to be honest, I tremble slightly to think of it. Things must – and will – change, somehow, but I had so hoped that they would simply have shifted by now, that more nights than not would be unbroken.

The second thing that is causing me frustration is the wet knickers of woe. The small girl learned how to use the toilet with very little prompting at about twenty-eight months. It seemed very easy; there were a few puddles, but mostly she told us the deal and we helped and all was well with the world. Until about, oh, December of last year, when there were increasing puddles and no mention was made of impending disaster, until I found we were at four or five changes of clothes a day. It’s not that bad now by any means, but today’s bed-wetting incident, which took place ‘because I was busy’, is far from atypical, and just drives me absolutely bat-shit. I know that getting cross doesn’t help. I know that retreating to nappies is an option, though not one I’m keen to try. I know that this too shall pass.
But sometimes, I am SO READY FOR IT TO PASS ALREADY.
I think that I need to learn not to feel terrible about feeling terrible. I am cross, sometimes. I am unreasonable. I am bad-tempered, resentful and self-pitying. But then how is this girl to learn the strength of my love for her if she remains unaware that, at times, it is tempered by bloody hard work and the need to keep on keeping on? I hope that she sees my anger for what it is: a transitory reaction, part of the range of normal human emotions which must be dealt with, both as the recipient and as the, er, feeler.
It is not all bloody. It just does a good impression sometimes. And that is OK. This too shall pass.

(Random pictures to remind me of the good bits, incidentally.)