I’ve heard the saying, “Mums get no days off.” It’s true and it isn’t. I know a couple of mums that get plenty of days off, with health retreats throughout the year, child-free holidays, and so on. Sometimes days off seem IMPOSSIBLE. Even getting through some days seems impossible. I get a few hours to myself; I like to get my nails done, and tomorrow I have a first hair appointment in six months - shock horror!
I have a two and a five year old, and I work part time. On Thursdays I work at home, and I like to think of that as my day “off”. I work in peace, I play my own music, I answer only to the ding of Teams’ notifications, emails and my stomach rumbles. Today is Thursday, and I had my two year old home sick from daycare. It’s barely just winter, and we’ve been knocked out at least twice already. I did my best to keep her entertained while I caught up on the work I started Tuesday, where seven meetings had me pretty tied up. We were doing fine, and she was enjoying being home with me, watching Peppa Pig on repeat, and eating through the snack shelf of the pantry.
At 11:00am, my daughter’s school called asking if I could pick up my preppy as she had a headache, fever and sore tummy. So I alerted work, bundled up my toddler and ran to the rescue. She wasn’t well, at all. We made her warm and gave her medicine, and suddenly it was 11:30am, which means nap time for the little one. I quickly answered emails, started writing an article and reviewed some work. I made sure miss five was comfortable and then put miss two down for her nap. After that, I made a quick couple of sandwiches for us, and ate at my desk. While answering 785 questions, including “How do you spell chicken?” and “What is 78 plus 802?” (from my child, not a colleague), I worked through my list for the day, trying my hardest to focus on the tasks at hand. Suddenly it’s 1:45pm and my two year old is awake, and I break my focus. Now it’s time to prepare her food and get her playing happily with her sister. It’s much easier than I had thought, so I can get back to my work. By 3pm, she’s sitting on my lap tapping away at the keys on my computer, asking why I have a spare TV (my second computer monitor) and she just has a lousy plastic phone with dead batteries.
The dog is whining as he hasn’t had a walk all day. My husband left for work at 8:30am, and he won’t be back until we are asleep at 10pm. Miss five goes downhill as suddenly as Melbourne’s morning temperatures, and needs her fever brought down, so there’s no leaving the house. I’m starting to think getting through this day is impossible, but we push through with more snacks, YouTube kids and a cranked heater.
At 4:30pm I’m cooking lamb chops from Monday and drafting my weekly wrap-up for work.
My phone rings. My husband asks, “How was your day?” I sigh and say it was busy. I read some feedback about my work as the kids eat dinner in front of the fire I made by rubbing two sticks together because everyone is “SO COLD!” and I take a breath. Only a quick one though, as I need to run the bath for two girls who identify solely as mermaids and then hit send on one more message before the end of the working day. COB they call it; Close of Business. (Mums don’t really have a COB though, do they?!)
I haven’t had a shower all day, and it’s 6:20pm. My youngest just shut her head in the fridge trying to make imaginary apple pie for the dog, there’s a full basket of clean laundry waiting to be folded on the kitchen table and I think the wombok I was relying on to substitute as salad leaf for my dinner is growing babies. But gosh, somehow I feel accomplished. There’s ice cream on the couch slowly seeping into the earth under our home, the iPads are dead and I am tired, so tired. But I’ve nearly ticked everything off my work to-do list, and, apart from fridge-headgate, the girls are now content, warm, full, laughing, and nearly ready for bed.
Mums do get days off, but not me today. And that’s ok! We got through it. I’m forever grateful for an extremely supportive workplace who understand what people, and mums, go through on a daily basis. No one pressured me to hit unrealistic deadlines, and everyone understood what I was going through, or at least sympathised or empathised with me. And in the end, it just makes me want to work smarter, and harder. In all aspects of my life.
There will be a glass or four poured tonight, and I’d say they are well deserved. I’ve just realised baby mermaid is due for her antibiotics, so I’ll end with one of our favourite Peppa Pig quotes, “It’s impossible!”
But really Peppa, NOTHING is impossible.
