My Mum has the MiniMads for only the second time in their life. Yes this is the second evening me and MadDad have had to ourselves and we have no intentions of going out (not that we could afford to anyway).
Before we had children we swore we wouldn't become parent bores, you know the ones...... the people who have no other topic of conversation apart from their children and guess what we are turning into them.
We decide not to bother with the grand dinner I had planned to cook, instead we settled for some cheese on toast with a cup of tea, none of the sparking wine either, as we sat in front of the television to catch up on some of those shows we have filled our Sky+ with.
We sat in comfortable silence, snuggled under the throw, punctuated by random sentences about how weird it is for the children not to be here and how sad I was that sports day was cancelled and how will find the cash to pay for swimming lessons again, especially as it is the week before pay day. Then back to the snuggling and silence.
We trotted off to bed an hour or so later than usual, no having to get up for the boys, but as we reached the top of the stairs we both felt the need to go in to their rooms. You see we do this every night as we go to bed, we take turns to check on the boys, to tuck them in and stroke their foreheads and give them an extra kiss, oh and to just watch them sleep.
I woke this morning at 6.20, which is what time Maxi is usually up. My body clock hadn't yet got the message that he wasn't here and I lay still, not moving, breathing evenly as not to wake MadDad. Over and over in my head the thoughts that I was boring, didn't have anything other than the children to take about, that I wasn't witty that we didn't have intellectual debate and worse than that I didn't even know what was a number one in the Charts, let along who where the DJ's on radio one.
How had it come to this? When did I stop being a person in my own right and transform in to a mummy?
MadDad it turns out had been laying there not moving too, awake, but not wanting to wake me up. Oh how we laughed about that, we would rather let each other catch up on precious sleep than use the time making love, like we used to. So we laid and cuddles and I talked about how I fell that I was a non-person, a mother. That I had nothing intellectual or interesting to say and that how our conversations revolved around the children.
"But the children are interesting to me and I love hearing how your day with them has been. I want to know what they have been up to whilst I have been a work" MadDad told me. Funny isn't it, I crave adult company and conversation, but when I get it, I have nothing to talk about other than the Children. But then that is all I know nowadays really, that and the day to day issues of caring for a loved one as they get older (my mother).
We do tend to stick to talking about the things we know about and experience and I don't want to bring every conversation down to my health (or lack of it), my mood (deep dark and scary), our finances (enough said) and as for politics (money again!). So I talk about what I know, what I experience and what I live and for me at this time in my life it is being a mum.
So we have resolved that if mum offers again to have the boys (and after speaking to her this morning, I am not sure she will be) then I will be more comfortable with things. It doesn't mean that we wont miss them or go in to empty rooms to check on them though!
