On Friday, I had a bit of a wobble. I am not entirely sure what caused caused it, it could have been me stressing out – after a trip to the doctor with him being really poorly, my baby boy needed to go to the hospital to get checked over and I had friends due to visit for a golf weekend.
With the benefit of hindsight, and in this case, only a couple of hours worth, I realised that I was totally wrong and that I had just had a bit of a wobble – I think I just panicked a bit. I had my daughter, bedtime was approaching, my friends were getting closer, food needed to be made and some last bits of tidying needed taking care of. My priorities were completely in the wrong order. My sole concern should have been for my daughter and getting her sorted, but my head was somewhere else. I called my mum, she always knows what to say to me in these types of situations and has been a massive help to us on many occasions – she heard something in my voice and said she would drop what she had planned and come and pick my daughter up and have her overnight, with us not knowing if my wife and baby boy would be home, or if they were going to be admitted to the ward at the hospital.
I managed to do what (I thought) I needed to do around the house, then spoke to Esther and she said that they would be coming home soon. It was at this point that she made me realise that there was absolutely no need for our daughter to be staying at her Grandma’s house (as much as she might have wanted to), it was unfair on my mum and totally unnecessary. Having now calmed down and with a much more level head, I completely agreed that she should be at home with us. After calling my mum and apologising for interrupting her evening plans, she agreed we were right and she would bring my little girl back home after a little more play time. By the time they arrived, she was asleep in the back of the car, my mum had taken a more scenic route back to my house to ensure this too, helping me out even more. She was easily transferred to bed and sound asleep for the rest of the night, with my friends arriving very shortly later. I apologised to my mum again, I disrupted her evening plans and there was really no need for this.
This wasn’t the way that it should have been, my friends know I have two young children and they are very understanding. They would have understood if I had needed to take some time to get her into bed and settled, no matter how long this took, so why didn’t I just do this?
If my parents didn’t live so close, this wouldn’t have ever been an option. On reflection this was something that I could and should have easily dealt with myself, without any problems. My increasingly open conversations with Esther have made me understand that there is still a lot of room for me to improve in many areas. Staying calm and keeping a level head at these times is just one of the areas that I need to get better at.
I have a day of children all by myself on Wednesday as Esther takes some much needed time to meet one of her friends that she hasn’t seen for a while and a baby shower in the evening, so I will have to plan my day and also figure out how to get one little girl to sleep whilst juggling a baby too. This is something that I haven’t done before, so I don’t know how this is going to go, but Est has done this before, so I can too!