No one warns you and nothing can prepare you for what I can only describe as the intensity of Motherhood. I say Motherhood of course as I have no experience of Fatherhood. So if you are a Father, forgive me for using just this term. It’s the only experience I have.
From the moment they are born you are the centre of their world. You are there to feed them. You are there to change them. You are there to cuddle them when they need comfort. You are there. Just for them.
And so it goes for the next few years. As babies turn into toddlers and toddlers turn into pre-schoolers, it is still you that they turn to for everything. Even when you think you aren’t doing as much for them as you once did, to them, you are their world.
At least, this is how it is for me. And as I said before. I can only write this post from my own experience.
Ethan is very, very much a Mummy’s boy. Don’t get me wrong, he loves his Daddy and has a great deal of fun and giggles with him but deep down, it’s me that he would have do EVERYTHING for him if he could.
Even after a long day together sometimes he still insists that it’s me that bathes him. That it’s me that gets him dressed ready for bed. That it’s me that reads the bedtime story, ten times over. On a bad day, that it’s me that has to sit on his bedroom floor so he can fall asleep easily. It’s me that he calls in the night when he has a bad dream and it’s me he jumps on in the morning at 5am when he’s awake before first light.
It’s intense. It’s completly adoreable. But it’s intense.
Sometimes I can get to his bedtime and be totally and utterly exhausted and drained from the constant ‘I want Mummy to do it’ and ‘Mummy come and play’. ‘No Mummy don’t tidy the kitchen, come and sit by me’ and the hardest of all, on the rare occasion I go out? The tears and the ‘Don’t go Mummy, stay with me!’.
I’ve been known to feel relief at bedtime when I have a few hours freedom and peace and quiet – and the guilt as I write this is overwhelming. Whilst I totally and utterly, completely and unconditonally love my little boy with all of my heart – he really can drain me.
I know it won’t be like this forever. There will come a time when he will be oh so independent and will likely cringe to think he was ever this way. But for now this is how it is.
I gave some thought as to why I am everything to him. My conclusion is this.
I am the first person that held him close. My eyes were the first he looked in to. I am the first person that kissed him. From the moment he was born I have been there. I can count on one hand how many nights I’ve had away from him in his almost four years. I am there always. I’m there when he wakes up and I’m there when he goes to sleep. I take him to nursery. I come home to him after work every single day. I am there when he is upset to make it all better. I am there when he is poorly and needs comfort. I am there.
I am his one true constant being. Every day. I am his morning, noon and night. I am the centre of his world.
And on a really bad day, when I’m exhausted from being needed so much. I tell myself that. I remind myself that it’s because he loves me so much that he needs me so much. And that’s enough. Because the feeling is mutual. Completely and utterly mutual. Because he too, is the centre of my world, and you really can’t get better than that.
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