It’s OK to not always “love” being a mum.

There are many days where being a mum is wonderful, you have these small people who look up to you and think you are the greatest thing that ever existed. You make them laugh proper belly laughs, you get the sweetest of cuddles where they nestle lovingly into your neck and to them you are their superhero, their everything.

Some days your children will make your heart swell with pride and you wonder how you could have possibly truly lived without them in your life.

And then there are days where you just think “For f@#*s sake…are you shitting me?” It feels like I’ve had a few of those days lately. Overall I do love being a mum, I’d much rather be at home with my boys than slogging away at work not quite feeling appreciated and missing out the time with my two crazies, but some days they literally make me want to bash my own head in.

The littlest one has never been the best sleeper, sometimes I wonder whether it is due to me being too lazy whapping a boob out at every squawk just to shut him up? At first it was what he needed, now….does he really “need” it or am I just his comforter and nothing else will suffice?

We have been attempting to curb his addiction to his favourite boob and try and get him to settle without it….cue the type of crying/screaming that makes you want to push pins through your ear drums (and I’m pretty hard of hearing at the best of time). Having endured sleepless nights with that noise reverberating round your skull the last thing you want to hear ever is the tell tale whinge and whine that sends prickles down your spine and instantly your back is up.

Mummy walks away – wail

Mummy goes for a wee – wail

Mummy tries to make tea – hangs around ankles and wails

Mummy tries to quickly grab a drink – WAIL

Mummy places littlest one next to her on the sofa – clambers all over, clawing at mummy and….yep wails!!!

Unless I am holding this small creature and involving him in EVERYTHING I do he will just breakdown and emit the siren of despair that makes me feel like I’ve been captured and held hostage and tortured. Why does he do that to me?

Then there’s the napping, God help me this boy needs to sort his napping out, obviously he is tired, he knows it, I know it, he will go down fine but during his sleepy slumber he crawls around his bed, stands up whilst half asleep and starts…. wailing. I have barely gotten down stairs and started the million and one things I need to do that I couldn’t do before because he was clinging to me like a limpet.

Just give me a sodding break!!!

The usual day to day routine sometimes fills me with dread as each Ground hog day moment unfolds in its predictable fashion. Escape to toilet to have wee….in come the boys eager to peer round the toilet and “help” by forcing tissue down any gap that they can find, even whilst I’m mid pee. If I try to shut them out they attempt to break down the door like possessed zombies from the walking dead.

Then we progress to the bathroom to clean our teeth and systematically every bottle, every lotion and potion is emptied out on to the floor creating a death trap of obstacles to step over while trying to reach for safe ground.

Not to mention when the make up bag gets rifled through and the boys undergo a “make over”.

Every day we battle through the same explosion of foodie mess where cheerios lay strewn across the floor, down the cracks in the sofa and stuck to the bottom of feet. Half chewed pieces of toast are thrown across the kitchen and rammed down the side of the highchair and for some reason there seems to be more bowls and spoons scattered around the table than members of this household. The never ending cycle of clearing up half chewed food, wiping yogurty smears off the wall and scrubbing the unmoveable scum from under the high chair makes me wonder if this will ever end. At the end of a long day trying to survive the demands of two toddling dictators, clearing up the mess that they have created is the last thing I want to do. Its like a test of strength and endurance, every day I do it and every day it happens again and again – where is my relief?

It’s the FFS moments when you’ve put on a clean outfit and instantaneously you are tagged with the hallmarks of your toddler’s graffiti of snot, dribble and whatever else they ooze. You can recount the days misadventures from the stains on your clothes, snot – check, half chewed dribbled food – check, tears of despair (yours not theirs) – check, chocolate (please let it be chocolate….phew it’s chocolate, haven’t quite restored to sporting fecal matter smears as my fashion accessory) – check, muddy hand prints – check. Hold on a minute why do they have muddy hands they have a bath EVERY SINGLE day, certainly more opportunities of cleansing than I do, they’ve got no excuse to be unclean. You soon forget what it’s like to truly have a clean outfit and some days its just easier to sniff a top and pick off the worst of the crusty bits before wearing it again, why bother putting on something clean, it will only magnetise the slobbering infants in your direction.

It’s the moments when you “try” to get yourself sorted when the coast seems to be clear only to have the a little angelic voice proclaim sweetly with pride “Mummy I done a big wee on floor”. Just what you need to hear when you’re mid a pits and bits once over, you have to throw on whatever clothing you can quickly find to go and clean up a monstrous puddle of piss, which by the way your child has decided to add things to!! “Look mummy I put sticks in big puddle” (Sticks being broken pieces of spaghetti), all the while the one you’ve left upstairs has gotten into the toilet and is adding whatever he can get his hands on. What started off as 7am in the morning has quickly become 10am and what have you achieved? Naff all apart from a rise in blood pressure and the urge to scream into a pillow.

It’s the arguing over who gets to stick the panty liner on or who wipes my butt…ME!! It’s always me, let me have that shred of dignity!!

It’s the little fingers poking at prodding, pulling at every part of you, ripping out the tiny hairs that makes you squeal, it’s the fingers up the nose, fish hooks in the mouth and the attempt at being curious and “touching” your eyes….get your sodding fingers out of my eyeballs!!! Can literally feel nails scraping across my corneas, how I’m not blind is beyond me!

It’s the constant refereeing trying to stop one from pushing over the other, attempting to show what it means to share, watch it happen for a moment before it descends back into a neanderthal like scuffle over a twig or a stone.

It’s feeling like you’ve been resorted to becoming the mad woman rocking manically in a corner muttering and cursing to yourself whilst nursing a cold cup of scummy tea.

All in all these are not really terrible things to be experiencing, it’s not like I’m being observed and going to be judged when everything seems like its gone to pot – Mothering Skills requires improvement, into special measures you go! I don’t really have deadline to adhere to so when things don’t quite happen as they should c’est la vie, just take a step back and breathe.

There are so many nice moments to enjoy and relish, we needn’t sit and dwell on the shitty things that make us weep into a glass of Gin at 10am, but then we needn’t kid ourselves into thinking we have to love every part of being a mum, some parts of it suck ass and its OK to admit that we don’t always “love” being a mum.