No Nap Chickie

Many (men) think that being a full time housewife is just an endless rotation of coffee mornings and fluff filled fun with one’s little poppet. Before I had the poppet, that’s what I’d banked on too.

Now two years and three months into my incarceration, my friends in the free world still scoff at the days I would sit at my desk, using work time and resources, to plot my escape. It was a simple plan.

‘Get: 1 diamond ring (a big one), 1 husband (a big one), 1 baby (a small one)’. Et voila.
Of course, it all started to go wrong when the baby was nearly as big as I was and the husband started demanding laundry services in return for his investment.

Then my stash of cash dried up and I was forced off the High Street and into Tesco where Accountant was less likely to detect that £50 of the ‘food’ shop wasn’t so much ‘food’ as ‘shoes’.

Whilst always happy to indulge my tidying compulsion, it transpired I didn’t much care for ironing. Nor did I particularly enjoy Chickie’s devil may care attitude towards table manners which left me scraping spaghetti off of the ceiling and feeding him wearing wellies and a kagool.
I didn’t take well to the unauthorised interruptions to my nine hour sleeping schedule either. I’m sure there were coffee mornings, I just can’t remember them.

Looking back, those were the good old days. Those were the days when he would sleep for up to three hours a day. This week we’ve got a new ‘No Nap Chickie’. A phenomenon that has mummy hiding in the understairs cupboard come 4pm whilst her abusive and burnt out toddler hunts her down.

I’ve tried to be patient and empathise with Chickie’s distress over Postman Pat being in the wrong side of his red van but I’ve discovered he’s not a reasonable child. I discovered this when Postman Pat and his red van were subsequently torpedoed at my head. Followed by his drum, Thomas the Tank Engine and Bertie Bus.

His morning greeting is ,”go away”. His answer to every question, “no”. His general chit chat during car rides, “Don’t like Mummy”.

My family all thoroughly enjoy it. Allegedly, I was ‘full of character’ myself as a child and my parents smile happily as I recycle their old chestnuts. “Just do as you’re told!”

Morphing into your parents is just one side effect of parenthood along with realising just how much you made them suffer. Accountant now does unto me as I did unto my mother, throwing rarely, yet freshly, ironed clothes onto the floor because hanging them in the wardrobe is just too much effort.

So to my lovely mummy and daddy who repeatedly informed me that, “one day you’ll understand”, that day has arrived and will be back tomorrow, and the day after that, and the one after that...