Transitioning

Yesterday was Remembrance Sunday, the country had 2 minutes of silence, wreaths were laid down at cenotaphs and poppies were worn. All these ceremonial gestures were to commemorate those who fought and die in the first World War.

It is right that we remember them, and it is also important how we remember. As well as taking time out of our busy lives, to think of them each year, we must also do everything in our power to work towards peace. To ensure that the atrocities that occurred during the first World War and other Wars that followed do not ever happen again.

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I did try to write yesterday. My son, however, had other ideas. He's not been napping right lately and staying up way past midnight like a little raver, making himself proper grumpy. However, unlike with mogwais, there are no 3 simple rules for me to follow that can prevent the slow transition to the gremlin stage. When he is just too awake to sleep but too tired to be happy. I sympathise. I often find myself feeling that way. And the thought of going back to work hasn't helped improve those symptoms, the illness being an achingly dull existence from 9 to 5 that allows me to just about afford the basics.

There’s every chance he’s just as nervous as I am about ‘MaisieWrites’ going public. Or perhaps, in reality, he’s just a baby and doesn’t care what I write about, mainly because he can’t read. But in my head, I like to pretend he knows and is forcing himself to stay up while I type away as a way of showing his support. He’s thoughtful like that, in my head anyway.

A rule book would have been helpful mind. Say if when he was pulled out of me, he was followed by a little instruction manual. Like the ones you get from IKEA. That would have made life easy. Sadly though, life isn't meant to be easy, if it was everyone would do it and, worse still, I'd probably just get bored. Life before my little boy was very easy but also, extremely boring. Partly the reason he’s here now, there wasn’t really anything better for me to be doing. The truth is there are no rules, and no one really knows what they’re doing, you just figure things out as you go along. Like a stoned student doing media studies, they don't really know what's going on or why they're there, but they all pass anyway. So long as they bother to turn up.

I have tried setting a routine, it didn't really work. Stressed us both out. Hence my plan thus far has just been to go with the flow. However, as the end of my maternity leave approaches, like a steam train bulldozing its way towards a baby deer whose caught itself in the tracks, I’m worried about what life will be like juggling a baby and a full-time job. I am trying to get him to sleep earlier, he has already started weaning himself throughout the day. But no matter what I try it’s just not working, and I don’t have much time left before I need to start getting up early and before he must go to a childminder. A childminder who will not necessarily have the time I have to force him into taking a nap. My little one doesn’t just fall asleep on his own, he gets FOMO, big time. He’ll be tired for ages but will fight the urge to sleep, unlike Boris at COP26.

The transition of going back to work is going to be difficult, for both of us. Although, I’m sure that after a while it’ll just be the norm and we’ll both be fine. I do not want to fall back into the ‘this’ll do’ mentality that I had before being a Mum, when life didn’t really matter so much. ‘Cause life is short, and I, at the age of 24, have finally decided I actually want to enjoy it. So, I’m hoping that when I do go back full time there is still time for me to vent on here.