Today can only be described as a painful come down from yesterday. Painful, being literal.

I mentioned that last week I had tonsillitis on my birthday,

Well, I woke up this morning feeling like I was swallowing golf balls again. Actually, woke up is putting it kindly. I don’t think I got much sleep at all. Which is ironic, as it was the number one thing I was looking forward to the most with having the kids out of the house. Uninterrupted, restful sleep was the thing I craved, and needed, and wanted the most. Alas, the things we crave the most, are usually the things we never seem to get.

Although I was feeling awful, I didn’t want it to ruin the rest of the morning/afternoon with Nelson. We got out of bed at our own pace, no rushing because a crying baby needs tending to. The feeling was strange yet familiar at the same time. Ministering to yourself, and your needs first. Oh the dream!!

We went out for breakfast together. Again, ate our food hot! Enjoyed conversations uninterrupted. Granted, the conversations were mostly about the kids. Why do we do that? I mean, we’ll never be lost for conversation, when your kids are the subject, but why is it always about them even when they’re nowhere around?! And as much as you hate to be those parents that talk about their kids constantly, it’s unnatural to fight against it. Yes, we are more than parents. But it’s the single most important part of ourselves, so I guess its only expected that it be the thing we talk about most.

Yet you always seem to carry a little bit of guilt when talking about them. Guilt when you talk about them to friends who don’t have kids, because what if you’re boring them? It’s hard to care about what a child does or says, when you don’t have your own to relate back to!

Guilt when you talk about them with parents that DO have kids, because you may appear to be boastful or comparing with. This guilt might all be fabricated though, and that’s the burden of mothering. You carry things that you shouldn’t and feel guilty for things that haven’t even been expressed by others.

Another form of guilt I’ve been carrying the last few weeks is the guilt of being sick and my husband having to carry the load of the parenting. Logic tells me this is stupid, it’s not as though I chose to be sick. Who in their right mind would ever choose to be bedridden sick, over parenting. I can tell you with conviction I would never. Feeling physically weak and inept and unable to do the basic of things is the furthest thing from ideal. We’re still in that phase of parenting where we’re up several times a night to settle Eva. Most nights we take turns, but since I’ve been sick this has all fallen on Nelson.

I feel so guilty and useless that I can’t help him, despite him never saying or doing anything to make me feel that way. It’s just how you feel as a mum. I actually told him last night that I would rather tap Eva back to sleep all night every night for a year on my own, than to be sick again (told you, flair for the dramatic over here haha). That’s the extent of my hostility toward sickness right now. In doing so though, that would require lots of sleeplessness on my part, and herein lies the problem. When I don’t sleep right my immunity suffers, and when the kids bring home germs and viruses from kinder, you bet your juicy ass that I’m the first soldier to fall. SO even though I nominate myself as tribute (hunger games reference in case you missed it) to have no sleep in order to be spared from being sick, it wouldn’t work anyway, because the two go hand in hand.

This too might be the reason I’m not getting better, or staying better. The stupid amount of unnecessary stress and overthinking I place on myself for things that live outside my control. Otherwise known as the burden of womanhood. Am I right ladies?! Can you tell I’ve been sick for a while now and in effect have gone stir-crazy?! haha

If you haven’t already noticed, today definitely lacked the extraordinary. In this thing we call the simple life, some days really are just that, monotonous. Especially when you’ve succumbed to sickness. But I will always endeavour to try and pull something I’m learning from the day, significant, life changing, simple or otherwise.. In this day, I’m learning that guilt is a burden too easily placed on ourselves, and I attempt to unlearn it, as hard as it may be. I choose to be kind to myself.

This is excerpt 6.