I’m posting a bit about the three strands of my life – Countrying, Mumming, and Writing – that I’m trying to weave into one glorious plait of happiness.
Today: Mumming
How on earth can I summarise the journey from laid-back, loved-up twenty-something pootling around London to obsessive thirty-eight year old, Mumming in the country? Things changed, people. I changed.
I’ve Mummed for just shy of a decade. I’ve been pregnant for 3.5 of those years. I’ve wiped up sooo much poo, a fair amount of vom (plenty of it on me), ample snot and too many tears (every tear is one too many). I’ve spent months at a time in a kind of personal “moist zone” of blood, milk, night sweats and dribble (that last from the babies. Mostly.)
Maybe I’m foregrounding the early physical stuff because it’s easier to lay out in black and white. C1 is going on 9 now, there have been plenty of post-baby years too. Tantrums, triumphs, losses. C1 had three full on “night terrors”, one of those things you’ve never heard of unless you frantically Googled whether your child is a real life character from the Exorcist. Sitting more than arm’s length away (she freaked even more if I got closer) while my Darling screamed in fear was a Low Point.
But what of the high points? It’s much harder to put into words the waves of intense joy over things that are objectively normal. Taking a step, holding hands, even just Looking Up. When C4 Looks Up at me with her big dark eyes I can’t tell you what it does to me. It’s like a Disney-cute character appeared complete with attendant butterflies, like Cupid shot an arrow through my heart, I forget whatever I was thinking or doing in the tsunami of love.
Only it’s not like any of those things really, because those are just words, or at best ideas. She’s my flesh and blood. Each of the kids are. Each of them is a piece of my heart wandering around outside my body, a walking miracle. It’s the ultimate love-trip. If you’ve ever been in love so hard you sometimes just sit there, stunned, it’s kind of like that x 100,000,000, only there’s no time to sit there.
Mumming is the ultimate full-time job, regardless of what else you’re doing. You’re on call 24/7, and whether you’re being their official full-time carer, or working, or studying, or out partying, or sleeping, or on the loo – you’re still Mumming. If someone else is temporarily in charge of one of my kids, I’m still running through in my head what said child’s needs are and whether they’ll be adequately met while we’re apart, and preparing for what they’ll need when, God willing, they are returned to me.
Mum Self reigns supreme over all other Selves. She’s grown in power and confidence over the last decade. She’s fierce, she’s tender, she’s calculating and forgetful and tough. She’s so, so grateful for the privilege of the journey she’s on, wounded by her failures because they wound her innocent loved ones and no matter how much she longs to be she is far from perfect, and consoled by the reality of C1-4 (and squiggly in-house C5) because their brain-stopping awesomeness means she can’t have got it as wrong as she fears.
Mumming has been everything. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It was hard to know what to focus on in this post - so feel free to ask me what you want to know! I home-birthed C1-4, we home educate, I'm a firm believer in giving the kids lots of independence... So if there's an aspect of my Mumming journey you're curious about, or a perspective of your own you'd like to share, please comment below!
Country Mum Writes 