I think it was a parenting meme that said when you can leave them in a room to play by themselves and not worry about them dying, then the next phase of your life begins.
Right now I have noticed it because Ewan started nursery back in September for 15 hours a week initially and he is now using his 30 hours allowance because he bloody loves it! I suppose my point is that as much as I relish the peace and quiet, and on the days I’m not working, I deliberately don’t shower until I get back home so I can do it uninterrupted (pure bliss!), I miss the mini dictator. The peace and quiet I crave is actually too quiet. 30 hours a week seems a lot of hours for him to not be with me, and when he’s at his Dad’s house that’s even more.
I think I’ve figured it out now. It’s like when he was a baby and I’d Googled “how to get a baby to sleep” for the 50 millionth time in desperation, then when he was asleep I’d literally watch him breathing and frantically Google “why does my baby sleep so much?”. That in a nutshell is my experience of motherhood. I’m wondering if it is the same for others, or whether I’m strange for quantifying it in such weird ways. For now anyway I’m counting down the minutes to bedtime, bollocking him for not eating his tea/never listening to me/ and/ or just generally needing to be scraped off the ceiling after he’s been the model child for his teachers all day. Until he’s asleep and I’ll come back downstairs and stuff my face in an attempt to fill the meaningless void that is my life without him. Why does this happen and is this the case forever more?! Is there a word for it? Perhaps it’s a paradox. I’m not sure…
