If you give a Botany a pancake

Two excellent things are to happen next week. The first is that, after several months of badgering the human resources department, Knox finally goes on to his new part-time working pattern; it will mean quite a hit (hopefully temporary, at least until he gets another job) in terms of income but he'll be able to be here for four days a week. The second thing is that my parents arrive for the entire summer; four whole months. 

I don't know quite how to convey my relief; indeed, my absolute jubilation, at the prospect of having another couple of pairs of hands around here to help out with Botany and with the daily grind in general. I really don't want to sound like a whinger, but my god. I am so goddamn tired so much of the time- and if I am being completely honest, just a little impatient and a tad burned out with the single parenting gig. It probably doesn't help that Botany's demands on me can sometimes seem endless, relentless, unceasing. From the minute she wakes up, she is a little bundle of need.

Read, mummy! Boob! Porridge! Sippy! Milk! Sit, mummy! Cuddle! Wear the pretty dress? Want pretty dress! More porridge? More boob! Croissant! Juice! Ants! Monsters! Ants and Monsters!

That last one is particularly problematic; no amount of explaining can convey the concept that you can't have two different movies on at the same time. There is also some difficulty with the notion that in order to provide some of the things she has asked for, I do need to move to a different room occasionally, for example, to get the carton of juice out of the fridge.

Given that the litany of things Botany desires or wants begins at roughly 5.30 am every morning and finishes at about 7.30 pm, I find the days that we are home alone together to be particularly...long. She is quite easily bored- or at least, she seems to be less fractious and hard to manage if I aim to provide an endless stream of amusing and stimulating activity. Unfortunately, my energy levels as well as my finances are finite; I simply don't always have the resource to come up with the goods.

Some days, we've already been to the library, the park and the grocery store followed by the reading of  "If you Give a Pig a Pancake" approximately 9,000 times and she's had her nap and then I am aghast that it is only 2.30 pm and there is still all this time to fill. By some unfortunate chance, most of my mother friends work opposite days to me, which usually rules out playdates. I'm about to try to sign up for a local playgroup but I gather there is a waiting list so it's not clear when we'll get in. I find myself wondering with guilt what we all did before the invention of the television. Then I feel even more guilty that here in front of me sits my heart's desire, my precious most wanted child, and I am unable to enjoy it, so overwhelming is the urge for a half an hour of peace to sit in the bathroom reading Vogue magazine.

When she finally goes to bed, I often just collapse. On a bad day, I find myself mentally whimpering that I can't, I can't, I can't do this anymore- but knowing I have to get up, make her lunch, order the groceries,  find something clean to wear to work tomorrow, do the laundry, clean the bathroom, sort out the tax credit thing, and plan a wedding.

I think, most of the time, that this is a very normal developmental phase that we are going through and eventually we will come out the other side relatively unscathed. I delight in my endlessly inquisitive, loving, amusing, bright spark of a child. And then, at lower points in the day, I am convinced I have spawned an all consuming whirlwind, whose thirst for life is, quite literally, sucking me dry.

Is Botany harder work than other children her age? On one hand, I very much doubt it; all kids come with quirks and foibles and I'd be very surprised if most toddlers didn't ask a lot of their parents. On the other hand, I do sometimes suspect that Botany does fall on the intense end of the spectrum. She's never, ever been a placid child, not since the moment she was born (or trying to be born, even). There's a such a streak of strong will in her- and coupled with what I suspect may be her considerable intelligence, it means that I have to work that much harder to keep up with her. What I keep telling myself is that I was never meant to be doing all of it on my own.

It'll be so much better when there are other pairs of hands to help carry the load, pick up the slack, make the pancakes.

Comments

[Tammy]

I remeber those days, and thinking to myself by the time she is 5 it will be sooo much easier. Guess what? It is!

Enjoy it all (though the exhaustion)as they do grow up too fast.

[yasmara]

She sounds more intense, much like both of my kids! I'll never forget going over to a friends' house when our boys were both around age 2 and being shocked that her boy would just sit...and play...with a toy...for an hour...while she did something else!!

Granted, it's very clear that he's on the extreme opposite end of the biddable/calm/easy-going spectrum, but it was an eye-opener for me that not every kid was as intense as mine. No wonder other parents seemed better rested...

[Carla Hinkle]

That age is soooo hard. I am just no good with it. I have no patience for endless rounds of blocks ... dollies ... books ... legos ... juice ... snacks ... etc. For me 18 mos is the low point of parenting, so don't feel bad.

Re: the television ... I remember in one of the Anne of Green Gables books (did you read those?) one of the moms saying how she just didn't know what moms did before the invention of the Montgomery Wards catalog, which she would give to her kids to amuse them while she got something done, and the old biddies cluck-clucking that in THEIR day, no one needed such a prop. So relax re: the TV. It's always something, you know?

[Anne]

And you are so right: we were never meant to do this whole gig alone. "It takes a village to raise a child" has become a cliche, but that's only because it is true. In times past, grandmothers, aunts, older sisters, and so on either lived in the same house or were at least in the same town, so parents could get some relief from the endless grind of daily baby and toddler care. Nowadays, for whatever reason, it is the cultural expectation that not only will we do everything parent-related by ourselves, but that we must be entranced with every.single.moment of parenting, no matter how grueling. I find this amazing, because if I complain sporadically about some aspect of my husband's behavior, no one looks at me funny; nor does the fact that we spend five days away apart for eight hours of the day each week bring critical comment, but people are still weirded out by these issues when the topic moves from spouses to children. Why is that?

[maggie]

you just wrote what i feel every day - especially the part that at 2:30 you start wondering about your sanity...and i have a 2.5 year old and a 13 month old. Oh. My. God. some days are long - everyone says it gets easier and i am sure it does!!

[Tor]

Urgh this age is wearing me out too, and I have a partner (tho with his work and my co-sleeping it seems like we hardly see him). My kid seems more intense than the other kids in our mums group or kindergym class (squealier, running round like a nut, more stubborn, but also snugglier etc) and is lately always wanting my full attention, I feel like I get no time without him grabbing at me. I am investigating childcare a couple mornings a week for kiddo once he turns 2, even tho I am a SAHM. I feel like such a wuss.

[Sara]

I hear you. It's not just you, it's definitely the age, but on the other hand, Botany does sound intense. I've got a pretty active kid too, and am ready to drop dead with exhaustion at the end of the day (and often before lunch), and my husband is a stay-at-home dad. You are definitely doing an incredibly difficult job. I don't know how single parents do it. I'm so glad to hear that reinforcements are on the way.

[Cibele]

The single parenting gig is not easy, I feel your pain, some days I just want to cry...I never thought that would have to raise her alone. I am glad that you are getting much needed help. You are doing a great job my friend, Botany is just like any normal curious, busy, active toddler!!

[Alexicographer]

You didn't post how old Botany is now, so I quickly did the math, knowing she's younger than my son but not by lots, and came up with September, 2007, as what would be the approximate month of her birth if she had now landed in what I found to be his Worst. Stage. Yet. So I clicked back, and darned if I didn't land on "Birth Story Part III." So. 20 months. Yuck. It gets better, or at least it has for me. I've found my son (6 months Botany's senior) now seems to understand such phrases as, "Be right back!" and will even Instruct me to go into another room to get him something. Mama. Milk. In. Kitchen. Which has its own set of challenges, but overall is preferable, IMO. As is having family around to help, so, go that!

[Veronica]

Every single time you write about Botany, I am stuck by just how similar she is to my daughter. And dude, intense is the right word. Also, exhausting.

[Jk]

It does get easier. Thank goodness.

[Sam]

I have those days with my 12-year old. Today I yelled "GO AWAY" at him. Not my proudest moment. I swear he is the neediest pre-teen boy on the planet.

[Hairy Farmer Family]

TypePad hates me and has eaten my comment 5 times. Sulking now.

Abbrieviated version:
Botany: hard work.
You: my Hero.

[spoiledonlychild]

My daughter is also a very intense child. I remember that phase when she was intensely in need of something at every single moment of the day. I can't imagine getting through it without someone to share the load. For now, maybe you can work on teaching her that sometimes she has to play by herself while Mommy reads. Start her on 10-minute periods, maybe with a timer she can understand? Might work? Also, it helped me to limit nursing to only at waking and going to bed. I found that, as she got past a year, my daughter became especially whiny and demanding around me when she saw me as a 24-hour buffet. Once she knew the buffet was only open at certain times, we were able to spend time around each other more happily. Sorry if you find my assvice annoying, just trying to help.

[Bee]

No not just Botany. This is what its like for me too, it is exhausting and the reason nursery hours have been extended for my son. Better to have a (relatively) calm mum for some of the time rather than a frazzled one all the time I say.

[Losing True]

When I read that you were going to have to do this on your own (and Knox was not in the picture yet) my heart sank. It is am impossible task with every hand on deck. You have done so well with all of this.

I felt very much as if I raised my two children (now 11 and 15) on my own because their father traveled incessantly, well over 70% of the time and often for weeks at a time. Other mothers would say to me that they couldn't imagine how I did it. I knew then what I couldn't say to myself: that even when their father was home, he was not a lot of help.

I had a pretty demanding job before I had my first, and by the time I had my second, I decided to stop working altogether, but I said then and still feel that two of my jobs, both full-time, would have been easier than raising those kids with a husband who traveled so much.

Then their father and I split up, and I saw right away that there is a huge psychological difference between doing a lot, or even most, of the parenting, and being an actual single parent. I can't tell you how many women wave away my "it's so hard to do this alone" with a dismissive, "Oh well, my husband never helps. I might as well be a single parent. He just sits around all day." Well, guess what. You're not a single parent until you are. It is completely different. There is no one coming, not ever. And it is horribly boring and scary and exhausting.

Still. As you well know there are those moments that feel like liquid gold is running through your veins you are so happy and proud and amazed by your child. What you can't know yet is that those moments will start to come more often, and then link together, and then they will do things like go to school, and sleep late and fight off your attempts to wake them, and compliment your cooking and ask to do something the two of you have always done together just because, and then one day they'll go away with a friend for a few days and then a week and then you'll find yourself strategizing for more time with your kids.

Of course that seems absurdly far off for you. But the train you're on is going to start to pick up speed.

And I am sorry you are having to do all this alone. It is quite possibly the hardest way to do the hardest job in the world.

[Melissa]

"Then I feel even more guilty that here in front of me sits my heart's desire, my precious most wanted child, and I am unable to enjoy it, so overwhelming is the urge for a half an hour of peace to sit in the bathroom reading Vogue magazine."

I hear you soooo clearly. My 2.5 year old doesn't really entertain herself all that easily and weekends become long. Even longer when I am under the weather like today.

PS-I am not a fan of the 9000th reading of Pig/Pancake either.

[silver spring mom]

when my oldest was just about Botany's age, one of my oldest friends called me up to tell me she was pregnant. And going to be a single mom. I bit my tongue so hard! She didn't need to hear how hard it was going to be! I just kept it in, congratulated her and offered whatever help I could give her. It's only when you have one that you really know how hard a job it is!

[Jana]

Your daily mantra: You (I) won't be doing it alone for much longer!