Sour grapes

My newsfeed is full of female friends sporting their first bumps, many well on their way to parenthood. I find it really hard not to feel bitter as I look at their happy, expectant pictures on Facebook. Perhaps that’s how they used to feel about mine.

This weekend I have been shrieked at many times. Sometimes just for asking help with a simple task, like putting pajamas under pillows, pairing socks (too many to count) or putting away the cutlery. Sometimes just because. It goes in waves, the behaviour, but it’s not a just phase.

As much as I know Jonah has greater challenges than other kids, there are times when I just don’t feel like rising to them. This weekend, I have been thundered at for helping him learn how to sew on his Cub badge;  for asking him to put down his iPad after several hours on the trot. Some of these are standard childish gripes, like being sulked at for not getting pudding until their vegetables have been eaten, or have porridge instead of chocolate cereal.

Both kids can get on board with that level of moaning. With Jonah, it’s the persistence and intensity that goes above and beyond, and the fact that everyday things that should be a joy as a parent become nothing but an additional chore. Like throwing a flid when I help him ride his bike, or ride a skateboard. I know he finds it harder than other kids. But sometimes we just need to get out the house. Most times we respond with patient resolve and stalwart determination. Occasionally, we bite back. I have put my foot down about screen time this weekend. It didn’t go down well. I am not a saint. I am tired. A bit ill. A bit frustrated. A little sad.

I had a busy week. So busy, I barely took a lunch break for five days straight and came home late on several nights. But I’m new and I feel I should make a good impression. Tom was away, so I had no respite when I got home, and my childminder has gone AWOL, so I’m doing my best to patch things, asking friends for favours.  I have chased her – she promised she would be back from holidays last week. She didn’t get back to me.

I drank one glass of wine too many (two) on Friday night and woke up pre-5 am on Saturday morning. I wake up in pain. My face has riven into deep splits by the side of mouth, my skin punctuated by spots. My eyes are flaky and sting when I cry. It doesn’t make anything better. I’m happy I have no one to see. Sometimes I want to cut my head off and start again. I drink fish oil and camomile tea and try to get back to sleep.

This morning, I went to a free exercise session in the park, having spent most of Saturday losing it or lying on the sofa, recuperating. It was biting cold. The trainer tried to make me compete with the only other person there, a woman who was older than me – perhaps by a decade, but who didn’t seem to have children. She was doing the class afterwards too. I don’t like competition, and I don’t really like exercise, not exercise than makes me sweat anyhow. But I have cellulite on my thighs, though no one really looks anymore – perhaps I shouldn’t bother doing anything about it? When I do star jumps, I feel self-conscious: sometimes I leak.  

After a while, the trainer gave up trying to convince me to go full pelt. I was floppy and uncooperative, my eczema chapped under-eyes squinting into the weak February sun. I still had the whole rest of the day to get through, and I didn’t really feel like hurting myself more than necessary. But I felt better when it was all over. If I don’t do things for myself, it all becomes unmanageable.

This afternoon was spent in grubby leisure centre. We took a friend’s kid along – she’s a single mum, and I felt like giving her a break – she will give me one another day – and the three of them bickered and sang tunelessly in the back seat of the car. I swam gentle lengths and didn’t go on the rusty slides in the new swimming cozzie I’d had to coax past my thighs. The kids dunked each other and shrieked, and swam loopy strokes. I have become comfortable with our mediocrity. Sometimes, I revel in it.

Tonight, I will read stories as I have most nights for 9 years straight. I feel guilty that Ava is struggling with her reading but I haven’t helped her as much as perhaps I should. She has hearing problems, but because she is largely cooperative she doesn’t get much attention at school. She tried so hard to get a certificate this week, because Jonah’s got two in a row – it’s an anomoly when Jonah is cooperative – but no one noticed. When I tried to help her with her homework –  homework she is too young to manage on her own – she grew frustrated and pulled a strop. She tends to save her obstinacy for me, a relic of constantly playing second fiddle to Jonah’s tantrums.

Most of the time I more than cope. I like the challenge, the busy-ness, the chaos. I am lucky. I have my own home, a partner who pulls more than his weight – but who works as hard as me. A job that pays enough. I have a cleaner who now comes once a week, but then I have mild OCD about floors, one of the reasons I find wet changing rooms with muddy footprints tricky to skirt around. I got pretty snappy when we were getting changed and the kids were asking about snacks, while my hair was wet down my back. They are always hungry, but never for dinner.

We’d been to McDonald’s for lunch. They didn’t complain about that. sometimes, you take the path of least resistance. When they happen everyday you have to pick your battles with care. I ate salad although I wanted french fries. Actually, I ate a chicken salad wrap and scarfed french fries off Tom. Who am I trying to kid? Perhaps if I went gluten-free my skin clear, or I’d discover a thigh gap if I exercised more intensely. But then I’d be bitter about other stuff.

It’s Sunday night. For now, both children are upstairs in their playroom – yes, they also have a small bedroom each. I know  we are lucky, but it often doesn’t feel like it. They are playing Monopoly, and already in their pajamas, pajamas that were under their pillow, just as they should be. This is a victory borne of losing my temper this morning after the kids left their bowls on the table after breakfast – the breakfast they complained about – having refused to get dressed, despite the promise of an outing on which they wanted to go. I am drinking wine. Perhaps I shouldn’t. Perhaps I should be playing with them upstairs rather than writing this. Tom is asleep on the sofa. I woke him this morning at 6.45. I’d been awake for some time.

All those friends who are having babies will perhaps feel the same in ten years. But maybe they will have perfect children who never scream, shout or demand things. Perhaps they will be better parents than me. Perhaps they will have more help. Perhaps they won’t have a child with asperger’s, who despite my best efforts, will always be just a little bit more challenging than most. Probably they will have challenges of their own. Perhaps their careers will stall as they get to grips with tiredness that’s no longer simply self-inflicted. Perhaps they’ll be able to have it all. Maybe they’ll just make it look that way.

Perhaps if I posted fewer pictures of my children looking angelic, my old friends would get in touch to see how I am (though to be fair, the one friend I stay in touch with from secondary school checked in with me after the blog I posted on Friday, as well as my sister and mother, who are currently buying a house together. I know there are people out there, I can call on if I need to, but they’re just as busy and stressed out as me)

The ones I spend my days with – The Reorobate Mums, the single mums of challenging kids who need a favour every now and then, and who return it when they can: the ones who’ve seen my children lose their shit over trifles, whose own can be just as tiresome, the ones who drink and shout and hug me. They get it.

No, it’s the friends from before, the ones who I no longer see in real life but only on Facebook, the ones who only ever see me looking as though I’ve got it all under control, the ones who are having babies now. They’re the ones who have left me feeling… well… sour. Perhaps if they’d knew how hard it’s been, they’d have been more supportive. Perhaps if they’d been more supportive, I’d be happier for them now. Perhaps if I was more honest… But perhaps not.

Spilling the beans feels like letting the side down. And no one really wants to hear the truth. And I don’t often want to tell it. As I lie here, my muscles are beginning to ache from my workout. I know I will pay for it tomorrow. I take another sip of wine. I know it will wake me up early. Right now, I just don’t really care.