One woman's perspective of (twin) parenting (and other thoughts about things)
TW: panic attacks
The Smols are now 9 months old somehow.
Things are getting easier, as I was repeatedly told they would (however unhelpful that was at the time). Sometimes, now, I enjoy The Whole Day. The routine all clicks into place, nobody is sad, everybody eats when they want to and we are getting much better at leaving the house and spending time with Lovely People.
Then, sometimes, we have a day like today.
It is 2.45pm. I have yet to brush my teeth, wash my face or re-tie my hair after waking up (I don’t brush my hair most days, so including that in this list would be somewhat misdirectional).
Today is bad.
I woke up a bit sad today. It happens. I have quite changeable moods, and sometimes I am sad. I am generally Okay at dealing with this. Sometimes, I am not.
Today was one of the latter before anything else got layered on top.
There are some situations in life that just kind of automatically spiral, one way or the other. An example of a good spiral is when you want to lose weight, so you try and eat less crap, which often also means that you spend less money. Another might be that when you do more exercise, you are generally motivated and able to do even more of it, so you get healthier and happier (mmm endorphins). On the flip side, may I offer ‘I have no energy because my children aren’t sleeping well but I can’t entertain them and wear them out because I have no energy because my children aren’t sleeping well…’
One of the Smols decided that they didn’t want to nap for longer than half an hour this morning. Yes, I know, the fact that we have twins on a normally predictable and reliable nap schedule is proper ‘cry me a river’ stuff, but hey ho. I’ma crack on anyway.
After ten minutes of waiting to see whether they’d work it out themselves, I got them up. They then proceeded to be Very Sad for the next half hour, during which I thought to myself ‘this is one of the downsides of being a full time parent (bonus points for twins and not having the normal support networks that people establish when they have children outside the confines of a global pandemic) - I can’t take a mental health day even when I know I really need one’.
Because at this point, I could feel myself spiralling and the Black Dog started barking.
I mean, our actual dog also started barking at some point, but that was to alert my husband to the fact that he might be required downstairs. He’s a clever dog.
It eventually transpired that the Smol was sad because a clean nappy was required. We are trying out reusable nappies on and off at the moment, and one thing that I keep forgetting is that the extra layers make it much more difficult to notice when a change is needed. As a result, said Smol’s bottom was now a very angry shade of red. Not unlike their face.
That was the final straw. Here’s what my brain threw at me in the following ten minutes:
And so on.
My husband arrived, took over, I had a full on panic attack, some time passed and then the guilt hit me in tsunami-sized waves.
Throughout this process (but mainly afterwards), all I could hear was Other People telling me that I should ‘treasure these days’ because I’ll ‘miss them’ and they’ll be ‘over in a flash’.
(Brief interlude here to point you all at this amazing woman’s comics, particularly this one)
I get it. And I really really do treasure the good days. Because, when they are good, they are very very good. I am amazed at everything the Smols are learning and I am more in love with them than I ever thought it possible to love anyone or anything.
But the bad days are so very bad. I am thankful that they are fewer and further between than they used to be, but they are so lonely and so debilitating and honestly, I’m just really bad at dealing with them. I also have no idea whether other people experience Bad Days on the same level (or worse?), partly because we are doing all of this in a bubble (thanks COVID), but aside from that my mental state is as personal and individual to me as anybody else’s is to them.
It has become much more acceptable recently to Not Love Every Moment, and I’m really happy that, as a society, we are getting better at that.
But these are not the days to be treasured. These are days to learn from, build on and then - gently, mindfully - walk away from.
xx