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Happily off balance
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I don’t know how orang-utans do it. They carry their babies for months on end, multi-tasking their climbing and parenting tasks by swinging from the branches with their young attached to their fur. I’ve just had two days of it, with Erin stuck to me like a tenacious limpet. Mom is the flavour of the moment, and she won’t let me out of her sight. This makes simple tasks, like loading washing and going to the bathroom, rather difficult. But it worsened on Sunday when she took a sideways tumble during one of her walking attempts, and clipped her ear on the coffee table.
Unsettled and in pain, she clung desperately to me for the rest of the afternoon. I got absolutely nothing done, which meant that by the time Carte Blanche had started, the lounge resembled a shop floor after a half-price sale and I looked as if I had offered myself as a canvas at one of those paint studios for children.
On Monday, as I enjoyed a morning coffee with my husband, I asked him wearily how I could achieve the balance between being an attentive mom and a good wife while still keeping myself semi-sane. He laughingly replied that if I knew the answer to that, I would be able to write the quintessential parenting guide and make millions off the book sales. It sounds tempting, but I haven’t read a book since December 2010, before Erin was born, so the chances of me toppling J K Rowling from her publishing pedestal are slim.
I have therefore decided that my resolution for this year is to make peace with the wonderful disorder my daughter has brought into our lives. Instead of worrying about the state of the lounge or the washing piling up, I am going to enjoy those special moments when we play together in the sandpit or she unpacks my kitchen cupboards while I cook. Who needs balance anyway?
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