I am sure that there are many parallels between my profession and my chosen life as a Mummy. This week I have lived just one of them.
Carrying on like everything is fine when actually you feel like death! In school when you are not feeling altogether you cannot let your pupils see. They need things to carry on regardless. I used to find it so tiring when I was a bit poorly or something bad had happened at home to put on my happy face and dance my teacher jig. I was always quite a jolly, physical teacher and so had to work extra hard to cover up when I wasn’t feeling right. Now I am finding being a poorly Mummy the same.
Since Wednesday evening I have been feeling awful and today found out that I have been fighting bacterial tonsillitis! Yuk!
But Esther and William do not understand that their Mummy is ill, they expect life to carry on as normal, which of course it has, but at a cost for me. I feel physically and emotionally exhausted and I am certain I am not recovering as quickly as I would if I could just have an hour or two to myself.
Esther and William have also been a little under the weather and so have actually been more demanding of me than on an ordinary week. William fed constantly yesterday day and every hour for most of last night. A good block of restorative sleep was never an option!
I hate complaining about the job I love. Being a Mummy to my beautiful children is a wonderful way to spend the day (and night) but just sometimes I find it so so hard and I just feel the need to let people know as sometimes I feel so alone in finding things difficult.
How do I cope with the three of us home alone, all unwell? Whose needs do I tend to first? How do you make that decision when one has a streaming nose and the other just wants to suckle? One has a horrible nappy, the other is covered literally from head to toe in puree and snot? I only have two hands, even on my best days!
Not feeling like such a good Mummy today x Used to feel like this about teaching too after a bad day.
Please let us all be a bit better tomorrow x
Bad day chick, it happens to us all. You are tired, you are weary, you are a good mum, you are a good mum!
Thank you x
Aaaah Hope you are feeling better soon, It’s true though that you take a lot of your teacher self into Mummyhood! I do it all the time I think 🙂
It happens to us all, it will get better as they get older and more independent.. I had pneumonia and had to look after a 3yo and 4 month old, but we got there in the end.. x
I feel for you, as a regular tonsilitus sufferer. Hope you feel better very soon.
I have never had it before and I am amazed at how much it knocks the stuffing out of you!