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We had a new born, a 21-month-old and a 3-year-old having night terrors and it felt like I hadn’t slept properly in a lifetime.  You’re supposed to be tired when you have a new born.  It’s part of the deal that you signed up for.  Snuggly night feeds with baby number 1 are actually in lots of ways such a special time (although I do remember that at the time the fear of the sleepless nights was crippling!) and you know that come morning you can just stay in bed and snuggle some more.  No one was standing by your bed at 5am asking if it was time to go downstairs for breakfast or shouting for you to come and wipe their bum because they had done a poo.  This picture is when Jess was about 2 days old and we were out conker collecting with Charlie and Ben because that’s what little people want to do!  They don’t care if you’ve just given birth, your constantly breastfeeding or you haven’t had more than 20 minutes sleep! Bloody hell I was tired, so was my husband.  In fact, we still are.  Yes, it’s true, now we don’t get woken up every 40 minutes by a new baby needing feeding, but between temperatures, nightmares, wet beds, sheets that need tucking in and falling out of bed, our house at night is like playing a game of never-ending whack a mole!  One child pops up, you settle them, get back into bed and you’re just falling sleep again when another one pops up with the next ridiculous emergency.  My personal favourite was Ben screaming like a banshee only to discover once I was inside his room, that he actually just had a piece of rogue snot on his finger. But in the middle of the night, you are so afraid of them waking up the others that you move like a cheetah to shush them and try and get them back to sleep before you have a full blown 2am riot on your hands. I can count on one hand the number of unbroken night’s sleep we have had in the last 6 years – its relentless. When you are this tired, it’s hard to find the energy to eat properly, to call your friends, to do more exercise than trekking the kids up to school and back or to be much more than civil to your partner. Life with young children is hard right?  And it was hard before bloody ‘rona when we all had to do everything we did before, but now we had to add in teaching, working from home with a child using you as a climbing frame through zoom calls, without any physical support from family and friends.  And I see that written into every one of my friend’s faces as they try to balance their children’s needs, childcare, doctor appointments, homework, playdates, house work, food shopping and work.   I think we all need to take a minute to appreciate just how well we are doing just to stay afloat amidst the chaos of life.  I think everyone who is surviving is doing a great job! Do you know a Mum who has a lot on her plate right now?  Why not send her one of these postcards and some delicious chocolate to brighten her day?

With everything that is going on at the moment, I find myself thinking of Dad a lot. Of how lucky I feel that he isn’t here to go through this, that we don’t need to manage his daily care through this crisis and that we don’t have to say goodbye to him at a distance without being able to hug one another through the pain. When Dad passed away it was the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with, and we had been lucky in lots of ways that we had time to come to terms with what was going to happen, had made some incredibly special memories with together in his last 18 months and were able to be there when he passed away at home.   I am a positive person.  I smile through tough times and try to see the good in most situations.  So, when I had an underlying feeling of sadness that I couldn’t shift and an overwhelming sense of being lost and angry, it really shook my whole world as I didn’t know how to deal with those strange feelings that I couldn’t make better with a plan and some positive thoughts. I can’t begin to imagine how so many families are feeling at the moment; losing someone you love when you can’t be with each other to say goodbye and are unable to grieve in the way that we imagined. Never before has it been so important to stay in touch and remember the grief that is with that person every minute of every day. No one expects you to make it better, they just don’t want to feel alone at the hardest time in their lives. The best thing someone said to me was:   This is a funny one as people said some lovely things to me like, “I’m just checking in on you, there’s no need to reply, I just wanted you to know that I love you.” And “I’m here for whatever you need.” and “I know that your birthday will be hard, this year of first times will difficult and I’m thinking of you.”  All those messages meant so much to me, but there are no words to make grief go away.  It is a long old process and I think actually it wasn’t about anyone having the magic cure to make things better – no one could do that, and actually I didn’t want them too.  All I wanted was to feel like someone cared and they were standing by my side.  That they remembered that my life was forever different and that although the world keeps turning, my life was in a weird surreal bubble that I couldn’t seem to break out of.  So many people didn’t know what to say that they didn’t say anything at all which I found hard to understand and at the time and it felt like they were devaluing Dad’s life and my grief.  Or after the funeral appeared to think that my grieving must be over and life had moved on now.  It felt to me like they’d sent the “I’m sorry” card and flowers, so the box was ticked and that they didn’t need to do any more.*  I will never forget the people who did check in with me.  The people who text me and called me all the time, even when I didn’t reply or pick up the phone.  The people that were just there (even though they were miles away), when I needed them most.  Making me feel like someone cared at the loneliest time in my life.  So please, if your friend has lost someone they love, just SAY SOMETHING. Tell them that you care and keep telling them as often as you can. *Now I am out of the grief bubble I appreciate that it wasn’t personal when I didn’t hear from some people and that life is tough for everyone, but the messages and letters and postcards and phone calls that did keep coming, really meant the world and I will forever be grateful to the people who kept me afloat when I felt like I might sink.

These are uncertain times we are living in. On the one hand, I feel like I have taken a step out of the rat race – I no longer have to rush 3 kids out the door and up the hill in time for school, or grab the work I need for a meeting that I am late for because someone dropped a box of cereal all over the floor before we ran out of the door. Now we have all the time in the world (apart from the constant juggling of work, homeschooling and foraging for toilet rolls). What I mean is that no one has to be anywhere or even dressed for anything at the moment. I haven’t straightened my hair or worn any make up in days. And I find that I’m not shouting at the kids anymore as whatever they are doing can be dealt with in the excess of time we now have together (although give me another 6 weeks in the house with Ben singing “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” and it may be a very different story!) It is liberating in many ways and a privilege to spend this precious time with the people I love the most. And yet I have a constant feeling of unease. Worry about what is around the corner. Worry for my Mum being on her own. Worry for people I love who have health issues. Worry for my friends who have been hit hard by this disease. Worry for my incredible friends in the NHS. Worry for people I don’t know who were already struggling to get through the day before we added the stress of a global pandemic and being housebound with no face-to-face support into their already difficult lives. I have also realised that I don’t know how to relax anymore. I feel like I need to be doing something even after the kids are in bed to make the most of the childfree time. I have found I can’t switch off my phone and just “be” in the evenings. I am hungry for information that, once consumed, keeps me up all night. And so I find myself feeling a little lost – feeling helpless against the incoming tide that we are all facing together. The best thing someone said to me was: Whilst in the midst of a storm, focus on those things you can control and right now that is the little bubble of my house. So I am making plans to toast marshmallows and camp in the garden, to put paint in water pistols and make a mess, bake cornflake flapjacks and have hour long snuggles with my three little people. I know this is a scary time for everyone, we could make some amazing memories that our children will treasure forever. And tonight, I am putting my phone down, my laptop away and having a beer with my gorgeous hubby. Tell Her You Care has put together a lovely range of postcards that would brighten anyone’s day, but are especially perfect for the people we love who feel far away and have never needed to hear we are thinking of them more.

The time when: I took 3 children swimming To be fair, one of them had a swimming lesson, so I only actually had responsibility for two of them in the water – a breeze you might think.  But wrangling 3 children under 5 into their costumes on a wet changing room floor and then showering them all when Jess thought that shower water was a torture technique was not the most fun I’ve had on a Monday afternoon.  And of course, then you have to try to get them all dry and dressed and chase 3 naked children round the changing rooms before they all decide to hide in a locker.  (Which they are all bloody good at by the way.  When faced with a wall of closed lockers and 3 missing children it is beautifully quiet but also a little worrying.  Once Ben learnt how to lock the doors, I had visions of having to go to ask the receptionist to help release my children whilst answering some awkward questions about why I was padlocking my children away…) This particular afternoon, the children we busy being children – getting in one lady’s way, being a bit noisy and generally making me feel like I didn’t have control of my rabble. My mind was busy telling me that I was failing at parenting and that obviously I was being judged by everyone in the changing room. The best thing someone said to me was: The lovely lady in the changing room who my children kept knocking into said, “please stop apologising for you kids.  They are beautiful and are really making me smile.  You are doing such a great job.”  She made my year.  This tiny comment made me feel like I was winning at parenting.  I will never forget that lady’s kindness.  Let’s always try to say something nice when someone is struggling, it really could make all the difference. Do you know someone who feel’s like they have lost control of their tribe? Why not send tell them they are doing a good job with this postcard?