Motherhood: Feeling A Little Overwhelmed

Today I feel a little overwhelmed.

The girls are happily playing upstairs and I can hear them chattering away together as they play game after game. They’ve grown so close over the last year, becoming the very best of friends, something that I really wanted for Little G when I gave her a sibling. I wasn’t at all close to my sister growing up as there was such a huge age gap, 8 years meant we were always at different stages in life. So, with mine being close it really does melt my heart.

It isn’t often that I pick up my laptop and write a post in the day. If you saw our ‘day in the life’ video the other day you’d have seen that I might check my emails and do a bit of blogmin for half an hour but that is is. Post writing normally comes once the girls are in bed, I never want to waste time working while they are awake, that time is too precious. Today though, after we had been upstairs doing some tidying, they said they wanted to stay up and play on their own. 

I came downstairs to put on a load of washing and tidy up a few bits in the living room. That is when it hit me. I am 5 months pregnant, there isn’t much time to go now before I will have a newborn baby to look after. The girls will still play together, nothing much will change there, but I won’t be able to snatch 5 minutes to put a wash on, I won’t be able to pick up toys. More than that, the time I now spend playing with them will be less too. 

Being pregnant gives you a taste of what it is to have a newborn as you are so bloody tired all the time. You can’t play with your kids or do normal daily activities with the same energy, all you really want to do is lie on the sofa and take a nap. I am trying my best to keep on top of things, to remember to put a wash on, to put away pile after pile of clothes. I am trying to keep normal activities with the girls as routine as possible, but I am struggling. 

Today, as I sat on the floor and put toy trains back into their tub for the 10th time, I burst into tears. I don’t actually know how I am going to manage everything and look after a newborn baby. I know housework doesn’t matter and believe me, my house is no palace, but I don’t want to live in a pit. The girls are like whirlwinds, wreaking havoc wherever they go and produce enough washing to keep me busy until the end of time. With a newborn to care for I am just not sure how I am going to manage it all, I don’t think I am going to manage. 

I knew it would be tough, a new baby is never easy, but it is only today that it is actually sinking in. It is only today that I have truly realised that this family is about to change, to grow by a whole human being – it is finally feeling real. I keep walking past the bedroom that will soon be a nursery and I am just a little bit frightened. I don’t even know what of but I have had to shut the door, I am not mentally ready for this yet. Just not yet.