I’ve had a really shitty weekend. . What was meant to be a lovely family Christmas weekend didn’t go to plan for one reason or another, cars, finances, fighting teenagers, and although we fumbled through the weekend, I really struggled to get passed what had been “ruined” ( more on my all or nothing / controlling perfectionism in a later blog!) There were many tears(on my part), much despair, frustration, a panic attack and waking up Monday morning to a blinding headache and a mouth full of ulcers (still strikes me how physical “mental” health can become) I fumbled my way through a pop up shop I had organised for our school uniform charity, it was hubby’s day off and I think I was more not there than there. . . Tuesday was equally ridiculous, an unexpected direct debit, the aga on the blink, my teenager causing more grief at home, some Christmas presents I bought arrived damaged, another day where quiet frankly I felt sorry for myself and like the universe was against me. . . Stuck in that black hole where you can only see things getting worse and no way of fixing things or them getting better. . Of course, because my anxiety had kicked off, I was tense, mithered, I hadn’t slept, and typically along came a fibro flare up, my ankles felt like lead weight, my legs were burning my head spinning, no amount of energy drinks were making me feel vaguely awake,and I was panicking about having all four kiddies at home after school whilst hubby would be at work until close to midnight when I felt so utterly rubbish. . .
Anyway, I picked the middle two up from school, and my usual fire cracker of a daughter was a bit quiet. She had been up in the night with a cough so I thought maybe she would be tired. . We got home and started the usual chaos of getting changed, meals, homework, the eldest had a theatre group, the middle sea cadets, so everything goes by in a blur on a Tuesday. . She knocked a drink over and I told her to be careful, not with a raised voice or anything.. but she burst into a fit of tears. . . “What’s happened” I asked her, “do you still feel poorly”. . . “No” she said.. but she was still crying. . . I held her hands and got down to her level and asked her again “what’s happened baby girl” . . And she sank into my arms for a cuddle. . “Everything is bad and everything’s gone wrong” she sniffles. . . Meanwhile Alfie has thrown his banana from his high chair onto the floor, the cat is eating it whilst he bashes the high chair tray repeatedly, i am trying to make a mental note to clean it up before someone slips on it, I’ll probably forget and it’ll probably be me. The teenager is having some sort of meltdown over Jam and lemon curd school dinners and middle boy is doing the dishwasher so loudly I’m not sure whether he’s just got the tact of a circus clown or if it’s some sort of loud protest in being asked to do it (you know, so we can all eat and get him to his club on time🙄😂)
Her arms were tight around my neck in a way I don’t remember her doing for years, peeling her off whilst trying to remain gentle was a work of art, “talk to me, tell me what’s gone wrong, because no matter how bad it is, we can fix it” she cried harder, and I was left thinking I had pretty much said and done everything by the book up to this point, how could I make it worse? My chest pangs. I can SEE me in her (again, this is another blog for the future!) . I can see her eyes flashing panic, she feels like everything’s out of control and I completely get how she feels, and me telling her that everything’s going to be ok just won’t wash (this is particularly poignant of conversations me and hubby have when I get in a tizz) . . . “Why don’t you tell me what happened, and we can see what we can do” I try. . And she went on to tell me about her day, how her show and tell went wrong, her and her best friend broke up, her apple didn’t taste nice, she didn’t know the answers in maths and she didn’t have anybody to play with. . She got pushed over on the playground and the teacher didn’t phone me. . . She cried her way through the whole story, and when I told her she was home now and it was okay, she sat down for her tea. . .whereby I start rushing round like a woman possessed whilst all three are sat still in one place momentarily, swap the washing, start running the baths, cleaning the kitchen down and getting together the right money for the various clubs we’ll soon be rushing off to. One of her sausages was too hot, and the floods of tears start again. It’s like every little thing was going to be another straw breaking another camel’s back. .
You see, my little lady isn’t normally like this. She’s a gobby feisty little thing with two big brothers and a sassy little personality. She’s the only girl on her local football team, pulls no punches, so this was all out of character for her! We move onto the bath, and she’s standing naked waiting to get in and cries again, silent little tears this time and my heart breaks. . “I can’t stop thinking about my rubbish day and I don’t want to do my homework or go back tomorrow” she says. I took her hands back in my hands and say to her “look little lady, I can’t do anything about what happened at school today, I know that was bad. . .but what I can tell you is that your here now, with me, let’s have this bath, get little Alfie off to bed and when Dad’s taking the boys to clubs let’s do whatever you want to cheer you up, so you can stop thinking all those bad thoughts, even if only for a little bit. . Does that sound ok? She nodded, and smiled, and got in the bath. . I sorted the biggest two out whilst Dad did baths, took little man up to bed and me and Scarlett headed to the living room whilst I start worrying about having over promised her and what over extravagant “whatever you want” she’s going to come up with!!
All she wanted to do was sit and colour. . In front of the fire, stretched out on the living room floor we coloured some snowmen cut outs that I had originally bought for the previously mentioned disaster of a weekend. . “We should’ve bought some felt tips” she says, because the pencil crayons aren’t really showing up on the foam figures. . . And the smile on her face when I grabbed a packet of felt tips out of the Christmas cupboard.. you’d think I had just handed her a million dollar bill! An hour passed, Jason got back from dropping the boys off, and she asked if he would make us a cup of tea ❤ Which of course, he does, and whilst he heads off to Hoover (I know,he’s a diamond, and yes, the entire time I was stressing about not “doing” stuff) I popped my little Boo (a nickname I am still not sure where came from) up onto my knee on the recliner, and we had the best of cuddles. No TV in the back ground, I just listened. And by God can my child talk. Fast. And so animated she makes me giggle, even at parts I shouldn’t be (so she told me!) She talked about her friends and school, she made a list of good and bad behaviours and we talked about the friends she DOES have at school, until she stopped, literally dead stopped in the middle of a sentence and said “it’s nice to chill out isn’t it” I smiled and agreed that it doesn’t happen very often in this crazy house! ” I have loved our special time mummy you’ve turned my bad day upside down and now I feel ok again”
My little lady went off to bed happy. When two hours earlier she had been in pieces. . And how simple had it been to put her back there. What struck me most was how important I had made it to make sure we got her there. . . And it got me thinking, why do I never do that for myself. I mean, never. Things get so ridiculously on top of me. I despair. I feel overwhelmed. But I never take a minute to stop. I never turn off for a minute. Take five. I keep reading all these articles about self care or about breathing space, but if I am not in the whirlwind moment of crying or panicking, I am beating myself up for not having done enough, achieved enough that day, made the right amount of phone calls or ticked enough off the to do list. Jason is always saying to me, just chill out for a minute, switch off. . But I never take his advice. I feel to guilty, to rushed, there’s still too much to do. I get infuriated by his notion of just chilling out, how can he even suggest it!
But then, tonight, I saw for myself the difference it made to my little person, and I wonder, just maybe, would it work for me too? Even just this time with her, that evening, made me forget for five minutes that the kitchen looked like world war three, there was still a huge pile of laundry I had promised myself all day I would do when Alfie stopped for 5 minutes, my phone had been pinging away in the background with whatsap group messages, Facebook notifications, emails and goodness knows what else. Once she was tucked up in bed, and I went back downstairs to tidy up the 1001 pieces of paper we seemed to have gone through and try to reunite all the felt tips with their lids to try to salvage them before they dried out, I realised, I don’t actually have a headache anymore and the crushing panicking chest pains were eased off for the first time in days. .
So why is it that we can see how urgent it is for someone else to take time out. Value the need to cheer some one up. Help them to think clearly, take stock of the moment, appreciate that no,you can’t change the day they’ve had, but we can do things to try to ease their feelings. . But that we don’t hold our own well being in the same esteem? Because within ten minutes I was stressing that the hour and 55 minutes I had spent with her I could have done two 60 minute washes and finished cleaning the kitchen that hubby was now doing whilst I felt guilty I hadn’t. . I instantly went back to piling on the blame, seeing the inadequacies and beating myself up for having done “nothing”.
We’ve made a little promise to each other that on a Tuesday, when Alfie is in bed, and the boys are at club, we’ll have a little ❤us❤ time. Jase won’t always have Tuesday evenings free to do the dropping off and picking up, but I’ll always try to make time for a little one on one with my Boo, which inadvertently will mean a little time out for me too. .
Do you manage some “me” time. Or to switch off? What are your top tips for finding time to chill out for five minutes when you feel like no matter how much you do, the houseworks never finished, messages never all answered, shopping never all done and the top do list ever growing? Do you place a value on self care? Am I missing a really important trick? I’d really love to hear your input on it ❤
Organised_Chaos4kids 