Mornings

Oh how I miss the mornings when the alarm would go off and I would lazily hit the snooze button two or three times before finally throwing off the covers and starting my day.  I would still have ample time to take a shower, do my hair and makeup or maybe have a quickie with the hubby before we both set out for work.

Now oh now, as soon as the alarm goes off I have to burst out of bed while my 13 month old is still sleeping.  This is imperative as during these precious 10 or 15 minutes I have to get myself toileted, cleaned, make upped, dressed and fed, because as soon as he wakes up it is go time.  My husband joins me in the mad dash in the morning but unfortunately he has to take off for work well before I can drop our boy at day care before heading to work.  So he is normally out the door before he even wakes.

Once up the boy requires so much attention between the nappy change, breastfeed, breakfast that I try to feed him while gingerly keep myself from having soggy Weetabix thrown all over me.  The chaos can be so great that I often find myself walking out the door with two different shoes or completely forgetting important things such as a wallet, phone or bus pass. 

I also face the struggle of the actual drop off at day care.  This requires me scrambling down our apartment stairs with son in one hand and my bag, his bag, coffee, umbrella, water bottle, the works in the other hand.  Then chucking it all in and on the stroller we set off for what is meant to be a quick two minute walk up the hill to the day care centre.  Between dodging traffic and things being propelled from the stroller by my strong-armed son it can easily take 10 minutes. 

Once there the educators take one look at my frazzled state and gently take my son off of me and send me on my way to work.  The one saving grace during this chaos is the day care centre is close to home and close to the bus stop.  Which is great as I normally watch the bus I am supposed to catch go whooshing by just as I am walking out the door. 

By the time I get to work I often feel like I have ran a marathon and it is only 8am.  I look around at my colleagues as the lazily saunter through the door and chat to each other about last nights after work drinks and hangovers.  

I dreamily think lucky them (besides the one colleague that looks like he is going to spend most of the day in the toilet) and then I glance over at the photos of my son and husband on my desk and a smile comes to my face.  This smile says it all and why the chaos is chaotic, it’s its own brand of fun, especially when you have great teammates.

The Judgment of Strangers

This is something that has been on my mind for a while.   

We recently were in the US visiting family and friends over the holidays.  While in transit at the Dallas Airport sitting at our gate, I just happened to looked up to see a women walking along bogged down with bags, an infant strapped to her chest and what looked like a four year old following behind her. 

She stopped to check on her daughter who began to throw a tantrum for whatever reasons (there rarely is one) and threw herself on the floor.  The mother was obviously in a hurry to catch a flight and had words with her daughter to that extent while grabbing her hand and pulling her along behind her, along with all their bags and the infant screaming in her ear.   Her daughter wiggled away and continued the tantrum.  The exhausted mother grabbed whatever limb she could manage too, which just happened to be her leg, and began pushing forward. 

Then out of the blue a woman stopped and I thought oh good some one is helping her.  I was bogged down with my own infant and bags, so was in no position to help.  Boy was I wrong, the woman began lecturing the mother about how she should never drag her child by the leg and that she is abusing her child by doing so.  The mother to her credit just told the woman to leave her alone and continued on with the two screaming children.  But the women followed her basically telling her what a bad mother she was being and she should respect her children more.  Luckily at this point the daughter got over her tantrum and stood up and the mother was able to make a hasty get away from this judgmental woman.

I was left shocked and disturbed by the audacity of this stranger who walked off with a self righteous spring in her step. 

First of all, anyone could have seen she was stressed and struggling.  As anyone with toddlers knows they can be frustrating and non-negotiable.  Basically you have to call their bluff to get them to do anything half the time.  And this mother, not caring about who saw her, called her toddlers bluff.  She did not hurt her child in any way she was just not putting up with the kids’ tantrum.  Most people you would think would have had the same thought I did: let me help you get to where you are going, rather than stopping her when she is clearly in a rush and lecture her about her parenting technique. 

When did it become okay for anyone to do pass judgment like this so publicly?  Honestly this woman could have done the mother a favor by keeping her mouth shut and walking on by.