Motherhood Week 130

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We talk! 

We actually talk to each other. 

about wheels mostly,

but sometimes about squirrels and trees,

we're not quite at the birds and the bees.

Thank God. 

Slow down. 

 

Never have I been so in love,

And never have I been 

so annoyed 

so quickly.

 

You are only two and a half years young

doing the things that a two and a half’er should.

Like tipping my make up all over the floor (drat).

Or pulling sodden socks off the sodding clothes horse,

tossing them about with a galloping glee

for all of your entertained toys to see.

 

And the swiping off tables,

ooo that gets me going.

Everything in sight,

from bowls of dried up cornflakes

to chess sets, piece by piece. 

I try to have places for things, 

crayons in Roses tins.

 

You say

No Mum, not a place for everything

and everything in its place,

I'm two and a half 

and everything you adore belongs on the floor.

 

I say:

Put on your trousers and let's get going. 

 

But I don't like clothes today Mum,

or going to the park 

or staying upstairs 

or changing my nappy.

 

But parenting isn't about making the parents feel happy.

Cause I'm happy in my heart quite simply that you exist.

 

You aren't tied down by the hands of our measured clocks.

You are free, 

and thoroughly led emotionally.

 

I'm sorry that sometimes I'm not stronger for you

that I am a human too;

cross, impatient 

and wanting to cry.

​

I’ve been kicked in the face as I pushed you on the swing.

Had metal cars thrown in rage at me,

which I skillfully batted off with an empty potty.

​

No one told me 

I needed self-defence classes.

Forget NCT 

I need a black belt in Karate!

​

And then genuine laughter spills out of you, 

and you get a joke and all the conflict just passes away in a light breeze. 

You are like sunshine warming through my every vein,

energising the very source of me,

right sizing me into my human shape. 

I'm really not that important. 

​

It can all be so simple and yet 

motherhood can feel so incredibly intense

in the smallest of moments. 

​

I'm bossed about,

snotted on (deliberately),

I sometimes get poo on my fingers, 

I've been head butted (it really hurt), 

scowled and whined at,

we regularly engage in various textile tugs of war. 

My hair is twirled absentmindedly,

I'm clung to, a human pillow. 

Out of the morning dark the gentlest of voices whispers 

Hello Mum

And it is pure. 

 

As music takes hold of your body 

and you dance with the freedom of a tribal warrior.

I sit still, watching you grow.

Banging a drum to the sound of your feet

you becoming the rhythm of my pounding heartbeat.

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Motherhood week 130.