An underwater day

Thursday 10th June.


10 am Stay And Play. So tired. Limbs aching. Feels like underwater. Speech and language therapist introduces herself.
“Any concerns?”
It’s one of those days when if someone asks how I am I would burst into tears. She has a friend with five who said that the transition from one to two children was the hardest. She has three. She says with three it is still relentless. But by then you are used to relentless.
“I remember,” she says, and then admits “Well, I don’t remember, it’s all a haze.”

Back home, I put Baby Sister to bed, make lunch for me ‘n’ Big Sister and wash the dishes. It’s now 2.15pm. Baby Sister will be awake again soon. I need to sit down and have a coffee, maybe more Paracetamol. My breasts are too full of milk, and all of me is aching. I’m looking for coffee on the shelf, but I can’t find it. It must be finished. Is there a spare one in the cupboard? God I hope we haven’t run out of coffee! I look back at my mug on the worktop. The coffee jar is there, already open, teaspoon at the ready. This is an example of how tired I am. Brain. Not. Functioning. At. Maximum. Capability.

I hardly slept last night, and yet nobody kept me awake. Baby Sister didn’t wake until 6.30am but I was fitfully drifting in and out of sleep like when you’re feverishly ill. I had strange, hazy half-awake dreams.