Over Christmas we stayed with my partner’s family in Dublin. The Emerald Isle is a magical place where the grass is literally greener with all that rain and metaphorically too, as we have access to *free childcare*.
A wonder for us, it truly is, that we can leave the house at a moment’s notice and not have to take the two kids with us, leaving them with their doting and willing grandparents – something we tried to embrace with as many visits to Tesco as possible. As a Christmas present his parents gave us some cash and sent us into Dublin for the day, while they looked after the kids. (A whole day!) I had imagined just an evening for dinner and some drinks, but with a day we were spoilt and we promised we would make the most of it. But in the end we were home by 8pm, coming in the door moments after the children had been put to bed.
We got the bus into town around 10 am, I think, and after a wander, we ended up finding somewhere for lunch; a sweet little café with a fridge full of decadent looking cream cakes, none of which we bought. We walked around the town, browsing shops and darting in and out of the rain, finding places to sit, chat and drink (decaf tea for me, please, I don’t want to be up all night!).
It was a lovely day. I felt like we had reconnected after time away, despite the fact that we live with each other - it felt like a real treat and yet it was so important that we had that time. I remember, though, being sat eating dinner, uninterrupted (!) unusually for us, and I felt exhausted. We went for a drink after and I think we could both see each other draining slightly, our energy had been spent and we decided, as the night was just beginning for many others, that it was time for us to go home.
And I wonder, did we make the most of it?
Our one day of freedom, and we spent so much of it talking about our children, or wondering around toy shops planning what to buy the littlest for his birthday in early January. We stopped in front of construction areas with diggers, thinking they would have loved this. We didn’t drink much, we don’t really any more as it will affect the next day with the kids. We missed them, and yet they were still kind of there.
We were in Dublin three weeks, almost, and we tried to enjoy the time we had - the opportunity to not take the kids everywhere, or for us to have some alone time, either actually alone or with each other. Of course we began the weeks thinking we had all the time in the world, and by the last couple of days we were itching to get away from the kids, “this could be our last chance!” we’d say, running through the pelting rain, coats soaked through, to a coffee shop just to get a hot drink in peace and eat a biscuit that we wouldn’t have to share.
Whether we made the most of it or not, it is a break that I will remember fondly.
“Have I made the most of it?” is something that chimes in my head a lot these days as I count down the days until September when my eldest starts school.
At my two year old’s health visitor appointment on Monday morning, I told the health visitor I was desperate to get back to work. “The days are long, but the years are short…” I said, feeling all of part of that quote and not much of the other. She told me I was in the trenches, that it would be hard for me to see but that she, with children aged 16 and 14, was counting down the last Christmases in shock. Only two until she goes to University, she remarked.
I know I complain about the amount of time I spend with my children, and how bored I get (and how difficult it is) but I know when September comes I will be asking myself that question again. As I wave my tiny four year old off to walk to school with his Dad and I hand my littlest over not long after breakfast for one of his five full days in nursery, I’ll probably think back to this time where I had all the time in the world, and curse myself for not taking them out more, for not doing more fun stuff or enjoying it more.
“Enjoy it love, you’ll miss them when they are at school.” This is something the Nans usually say to me at mum and toddler groups. It feels like the worst thing a person could say to me on a bad day - but they, with their rose-tinted glasses look back on looking after their children 30 years ago and miss it. I know I will miss it too, but it doesn’t make the present any easier, it certainly doesn’t make the time pass quicker. Instead on a bad day the hours drag, tinged with the regret I will inevitably feel in a few months time, when I wish we were hanging out together again.
I think what motherhood has taught me is that contradictions in this life are not only normal but to be celebrated.
Yes, I think my kids can be dull but obviously I miss them when they are not there. I love them truly, but I don’t want to spend every minute with them. I can be a good mother, and not be physically attached to them.
It is possible, then, and probably totally normal, that I could be wishing this time away and will miss it when it’s gone.
So in September when I will inevitably think to myself “did I make the most of it?”, I will look to the me of early March, exhausted but trying, who takes her kids to toddler groups almost every day, chasing after them as they try to escape through the fire exits - the me who feeds them the food they like and not the food they should be eating, who hugs them and wipes away their tears and the snot from their noses - the me in the trenches - and she will say, “Well, you gave it a bloody good go.”
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“The days are long and the years are short”, which part of that statement resonates with you most right now?
How did you feel when your children first started school/went to Uni/left home?
Do you miss those early years?
Come join me in the comments, I would love to hear your stories.
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That phrase bothers me so much: you’ll miss it. Every time someone says that to me I politely smile and in my head respond, hell no I won’t! Lol. There is not much I miss about the first 18 months of my kids’ lives. I really just don’t love that age range and I think that’s okay. There will be other parents who hate the teenage years but love the baby years. The point is we’re all different and I think we’ll love different phases of our kids’ lives for different reasons. None of that has any bearing on how good of a parent we are or how good of a human. It’s just us being us! And if I do miss something about these young years it will be one specific thing or memory not the whole span of a few years. Our brains have a negativity bias!
I would just like to comment that the nans are wrong. You will not miss them while they are at school.