Moments of calm amidst the chaos of parenthood

Sometimes, most of the time, I feel like I am striving for balance on top of the house of cards, or a pure moment of stasis on a carousel. But for a few moments today, I felt like I achieved it.

My friend Sarah and her baby girl left at 3 pm, after the lovely/chaotic/unrelaxing reality of attempting to do anything with a baby, let alone two. We had finally managed to get ourselves out to lunch where they were so sweet to us, I had blue cheese and pear salad with hazelnuts, she had pumpkin soup, and for a moment at the end, before the baby managed to pull the stroller on top of herself, could relax in the cushions in the booth and enjoy the last inch of my glass of wine. 

Having started out fractious, and highly unwilling to share, the babies were actually well behaved this morning, leaning towards each other and cooing, with my baby trying to kiss Sarah’s. It was a wintry Saturday morning in the country, the black glass spotted with raindrops, stormy, and correspondingly cosy inside. “No more!“ the baby commanded in her Marilyn Monroe voice, when I went to hand her to the babysitter so I could go back to bed. I always feel sorry for her in this kind of situation, she has a lot of power, but not enough to prevent this kind of handover even if her frantic handwaving usually prevents things being put in her mouth she doesn’t want. Astonishingly, she had slept for 12 hours clear, from 7 pm to 7 am. I even had to wake her to bring her downstairs for the babysitter at 7 am, and I felt correspondingly human even though I crashed back to sleep until 10:15 am.

After Sarah left, I had a feeling, almost for the first time, of pleasure and relief that it was just me and the baby, the feeling of in the purest way being at home. We sat together, I had a cup of tea, she pointed, “boo-! Boo-!” and we read books, boy does she love books, she’s like I used to be, after the next before she is halfway through the first. The dogs were lying asleep around us, the sitting room was looking pretty, the baby was heavy on my lap, and the air seemed to settle, silvery, around us, me kissing the fat curves of her cheek.

Our journey down had been by train. I couldn’t face the idea of driving down after my work lunch at 3 pm, maybe a 2 1/2 hour drive on a Friday in the dark, so I got me, the dogs, the baby, her Doona and her black quilted nappy bag filled with Oddbox vegetables, heavily, into an Uber Pet and onto a train at platform 18, now with a Starbucks decaf soya latte in hand. In this kind of situation I have learnt you can trust in the universe - people are so aware of you when you have a baby, and if you have dogs as well, they tend to say things like, “You’ve got a lot on your hands!“ as you pass. So you can be certain that somebody, probably another parent, will offer you a hand getting the pram into the train or lifting the dogs from the platform, and people are usually watching you on the journey even if you don’t realise. 

The baby was being grizzly with teething pain on the way down, probably hungry as well, one of the dogs kept trying to sit in the middle of the carriageway, I had a looming sore throat, and forgotten the nappies, the baby flatly refused to have any milk, and as I tended to her, in the relentless way that babies require, I pondered that my patience had become so stretched and extended as to be almost limitless by comparison to before. 

Meanwhile, the baby had caught the eye of the elderly man in the seat behind us, and was now beaming through the seat at him, her little round face aglow. I always know something is up when she changes expression, usually she has caught the eye of somebody who is waving at her, and she starts grinning back, she is the most outgoing child. 

Meanwhile the slightly serious looking forty something man opposite who had failed to return her smile when we hove in in all of our chaos nevertheless leaped up and put the Doona into the seat out of the way for me, and when we pulled into our station, was obviously super aware of us and our need, as I attempted, really laughably, to get the dogs, the baby, the bag and the Doona into shape so that we could get off, and leapt up and unfolded the Doona. As we waited for the train to come into the station, the nice female guard exclaimed, “You’ve got a lot on your hands! I’ll make sure to keep the doors open until you get onto the platform.” And she lifted the nappy bag with all the vegetables down for me, as well as the pram. We landed on the dark platform as the commuters sprayed alongside us, and the nice looking man sitting opposite the serious man, who had reminded me of the avuncular train passenger from The Railway Children told me, “You are the most amazing mother! I’ve been watching you!“ Oh thank you, I said, it was terribly sweet, and we trundled our way into the dark Christmas town, the baby now reverted to her usual tolerant self, as she sat small in her pram looking up at me through the darkness. 

She sometimes reminds me of a candle or a shaft of light – the other day I went into her room thinking she was in her crib but it was empty, and I realised she was like a piece of pure life, bringing life to everything around her.