Welcome to Mother’s Gonna Work it Out – a newsletter not just for mothers with children, but for everyone who cares for anyone. All previous posts are here.
Dexter turned two last week and when people asked how I felt, I genuinely didn’t know. I hadn’t had the headspace to even begin to parse the most terrifying, enriching and exuberant two years of my life. I hadn’t even found the time to revisit the photos of him when he’d just landed, those wise old eyes blinking up at me in that hospital ward in the early hours of a seismic morning.
Time turned elastic after I became a parent; the last two years have been both the fastest and slowest of my life. Moments so thick all the air is squeezed out, and others when you check the time to see that only 20 minutes has passed when it feels like years.
Throw in the finitude of our time on Earth into the mix – only 4,000 weeks, according to author Oliver Burkeman – along with the realisation that your time is no longer your own, and it can all start to feel a little claustrophobic.
Then there’s the worry that I’m not making the most of the time Dexter and I have together. Is just going to the park and watching trains enough? Should I be taking him to galleries and museums and football and baby raves?
For his birthday, we took Dexter on the assault course that is the London Transport Museum at half term. We joined the cohort of glassy-eyed parents chasing children around trains, buses and each other, barking ‘wait your turn!’ and ‘this way!’ and ‘don’t touch that!’ Dexter loved it and we felt good for making the effort.
That afternoon, my partner and I headed down to Brixton to do our monthly radio show. I was still operating at warp speed and it took a minute to shift from managing a constellation of activities to settling into the groove of concentrating on just one thing at a time. One record mixed into another. It was when I played this, The Nightwriters ‘Let The Music’, that time finally slowed right down. Feeling spread like warmth throughout my body. Dexter was two. We’d made it. He’s growing up beautifully, and I’m so incredibly proud of him - and us.
I’d like more moments like this – to deliberately punctuate my day with islands of stillness, however tiny they might be, before the day presses fast forward once again. It’s something I need to practice, especially when it feels an indulgence.
That night Dexter developed a barking cough which ended up being both croup and a chest infection. I had some paid work the following day, so his dad was on sick-child duty. I buried the guilt of leaving him and did a job I loved while every fibre of my being protested at being away from home.
Then it was about tending to a sick child for two more days. At one point, I collapsed face down on the bed after finally getting him to sleep. I relished the quiet. Although I did wish he was well enough for us to go to the park and watch some trains.