Apod Shape Production. Welcome back to another episode of Am I A Bad Mum? Podcast?
It is It is one of those podcasts that continues to give over and over again because parenting is one of those jobs that doesn't go away.
It's always funny when you look at those like memes or things which are talking about mums and how many hats they wear, like, yeah, ain't get any sick pay, I don't get any holiday pay. I'm on twenty four to seven. I'm a chef. I'm a chef, I'm a nurse cleaner, I'm a psychologist, I'm an uber driver.
And I have been really stripping back that whole idea. At the moment, I don't know why.
Well I do kind of know why, because you know, we've had some big thing happened circumstantially in our last few months, and I was just like.
What are we doing? Why are we doing all of this? And then I like have this moment of going, it's not for long. I have got not long to go.
And you talk about this as a parent, it never stops, but it goes in these stages with the ages that they are, and then the roles change and then all of a sudden. I panic at the moment, going, oh my god, I haven't got much longer, you know, I like, haven't got much longer. How much longer will they want to sit and watch a movie with me?
Or like how long would I keep weighing all that up.
It's interesting because I'm definitely in that stage where the girls are not wanting to do as much with us. But then there are random moments like last night, so my girls like to have a shower, and then they like to watch something on their laptops, like whatever Netflix show or what they're watching. And then last night, literally about eight o'clock, Holly comes down and goes, what are you watching? I'm gonna sit with you. Sat in the
middle of us, We're watching Master Chef. You're like that she's Master Chef?
Are you feeling okay? She just needs a bit of company.
See I look at that and just go so all those role plays, you know, the roles that we play as parents, like I haven't got very much longer to be an uber driver. Well, and even with food, like they're gonna get to a point I'll get to like fifteen or sixteen. Just be like that's fine, I'll cook something or like they just won't need you as much.
No, but thinking about that, they won't need you as much, But then on the flip side, they'll turn really, really fucking lazy, and so then they will still want you to do everything because I look at my girls now they have the ability to do whatever. Yeah, cook dinner. I still have time, So ch well, I'll come home so late and I'll go, did you put the dinner on?
And they go, now, we're waiting for you. And it could be something so simple that's just like put in the oven or something like that, and they don't do it, sorry, because they can't bothered.
That would kill me.
They need to be for a long time. But it's just pure laziness.
That's am I a bad mum for kicking my child out of the bed?
This is no you nod, that's absolutely what you need to do.
We were carrying this on because we had spoken about this a few weeks ago about me feeling bad for two things. One feeling like I'm bad because I feel like I'm undoing a habit that I had positively created.
Which is children sleeping in their own beds.
And then I was like really questioning myself about being like, maybe not very nurturing by letting her sleep more in our bed. So then I do the flip side Katie and then feel like I'm making.
Up for it. Now does that make sense? And now we fast.
Forward to you know, a few weeks forward, and she comes down. This is Elsie comes down and she goes, Mom, I'm really scared. I need to sleep in I'm really scared. I really need to sleep in bed. I was like, M and then my head, I was like, just need some sleep because I've got to get up at four am tomorrow morning. It was like a Sunday night. I've got to start work at like, I've got to be up by four am. So I tried every excuse here. I am as the parent, as the adult, making excuses
to my nine year old. Oh but what happens when I get up at four am? And she's like, that's okay, I'm okay to stay down here by myself. And I was like, but every other time that I've gone, you always fast about how he's too scared to get up and blah blah.
I tried everything to coax her with that.
I was like, not anyway, as I do, I cave and give in and say you need to go to sleep right now, though no reading enough, go to sleep right now.
She gets into bed, she does it.
She's comfortable, she's happy, she's feels safe, all of those things.
She literally just goes to sleep. There's no fight. But then halfway through the night.
Yeah, one stage woke up and she's got her foot launched in the middle of my back. So I tried to say, real calm, just like edge her leg over, but she shouldn't move it. She's up to my shoulder now, Like she's not a small child, like I don't have small wafers sort of children. I don't know how else to describe it. They're fucking heavy, and so I'm trying to like launch her legs sort of out of the middle of my back and send it towards the other
side of the bed. That wasn't going well. Then she sort of comes half too, and then she launches at me and she's yelling at me, telling me.
Not to touch me, And I was like, this is my bed because.
They sleep like starfish kids do.
Yeah, she was literally like from the way that you normally meant to lay and then she fully swiveled so head was like almost hanging off the side of the bed, and her legs were across the bed towards my back, and I was just like, this is a king bed.
Why are you even touching me? Like we should be so far apart and.
I shouldn't even be able to fill me in the bed.
Then she gets to three o'clock and I she starts.
Coughing, Oh, you got to get up in an hour. This is the bad mum.
Part, Katie, because I was like, oh, she's coughing, you know, like it's just that dry. It's just when that temperature just drops in the room at like three am, four am shifts it's a little bit cooler, and then that aggravated cough that just keeps going.
She's not sick, but it's a big cough.
Enough to wake me up an hour before I meant to be getting up. So goodbye, Rachel getting another hour sleep because you're not going to go back to sleep.
I tried letting it go until I just got up and I walked up.
I put a heat pack in the microwave, I heated it up, put it in her own bed. Katie trying to pick up my child dead to the world at her size was like drape seeing this child over me anyway, carried her up to her bed.
She because what are you doing? I was like, you just keep coughing.
All over me, and all I could think about is just the coughing germs just kitting me, like.
And just so loud.
I started getting like emotional, because you do because you haven't had much sleep, and you're like, i's need half an hour more.
Didn't go back to sleep, but she did.
Oh good. She was seven.
And then I.
Literally drove to work at like four point thirty in the morning, going, you're a shit mom. You're a ship mom for moving your child out of a warm bed because she was coughing. She's not unwell, but she's got a cough, so you know you want to care for them.
I don't.
I just pick her up and move it to the part of their house where I can't hear her coughing.
No, I don't think you were a bad mum for that. I would absolutely do the same, And to be honest, I wouldn't have probably let her even stay in there for that that long. So I'm even worse than you.
I literally tortured myself for the half an hour drive that I have to work about being a mum, being a bad mum. No for moving my child when she is unwell, not unwell but had a cough, just so.
That she's out of ears reach.
I got to the point when my girls were younger where if they came in and woke me up, I'd get so angry, like it just there was just this raged inside of me that was like, oh, I'm still asleep and now I'm not gonna be able to get back to sleep. And I remember a moment Holly came in and I remember like opening my eyes and just like yelling what. And then my kids had this thing where they used to say, oh, if you wake up in the night, don't wake up mom, go wake up
Dad instead. Mom gets really angry. I was like, oh, no, that's bad.
Oh there's moments Katie where I go, oh my gosh.
She woke me up one night and I did that same thing. I was like what, and she was like, my tooth's fallen. Am out. I was like, oh, timing, go back to sleep.
Speaking of teeth, the last tooth that Elsie lost, the tooth Fairries wrote a note and now she's like on a mission going through the house, getting everyone to write to see.
Who's handwriting it.
Is that just a note suspicious?
Yeah?
I laughed because I was like, if you can't tell who's handwriting that is Elsie today, chicken scratch is not mine