“There are things you have to not know…

…if you want to become a parent. You must dive into it like a fool.”*

I fear this post may contain some such things. So, to any prospective parents: I’m sorry for the unreserved honesty. Should you choose to keep reading, know that you are probably more competent than me.   

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Lately, stuff keeps changing.

I considered writing about the pitfalls of being pregnant whilst having a toddler (I thought I knew exhaustion; I knew nothing), then the first trimester fog that had threatened to swallow me whole suddenly lifted.

I thought about describing the delicate balance it’s taken a couple of years to strike between being a parent and bringing my work brain back to life. But come Autumn, when Hart White two is expected to turn up, it’ll be snooze time again for the old intellect.     

I wrote about Ruby’s latest sleep regression which ended the very day I was going to post it. It was four months (I shit you not) of torture, rendered completely irrelevant as soon as it was over.

Since she turned two – along with acquiring additional sass (“Mammy, mammy. Jessica! Stop talking.”), Ruby started nursery, stopped wearing nappies and had the side taken off her cot. No sooner was the sleep regression over, she started getting up at the crack of dawn to be taken to the loo. Her feet grew 1.5 sizes (we’re currently re-mortgaging after the trip to Clarks), she stretched out like a human slinky and learnt of her impending new sibling. Nothing, it seems, stays the same for long.

Being a mum – I’m fast finding – involves providing a stable and consistent environment, whilst keeping an eye on what might need to change at any given moment. It’s the role in which contentment can never meet complacency. It’s a masterclass in multitasking. And I am still no multitasker, whatever my CV once said.

You see, Tom and I have realised that it’s not enough to respond to the quick succession of changes kids fire at you, from the growth spurts that require a new wardrobe to the emotional developments that demand new ways of parenting. No, no – we can’t merely be reactors; we’ve got to be pro-actors. We’ve got to look ahead to figure out what might need to happen and when – and then, inevitably, join some sort of waiting list. We’re incrementally nudging our offspring towards that distant but promised land of independence, only to find them still circling it when they’re 30 (or was that just me?).

In co-navigating this perilous endeavour, we will try almost any tactic that might help us overcome the countless obstacles in our path. We’ve found, though, that sometimes there is bugger all we can do that will make a blind bit of difference. By the end of the latest sleep regression, we just hoped and prayed it was a phase that would eventually fuck off. I mean pass.   

Meanwhile, I could at least feel vindicated in the knowledge that the internet – as suspected – does not hold the answers to life’s most pressing questions, with most resources suggesting the regression would be, at most, a three-week long affair. A shocking display of fake news if ever there was one.

ANYWAY, now we’re out the other side, I can confirm – surprise, surprise – that it was indeed a phase. Most toddler themed dramas are. What’s a life, I guess, if not a long string of phases? That thought – the impermanence of it all – does seem to help in scaling the epic mountain that is motherhood.

But do we ever reach the top, really? My mum, who has three children in their forties (me, the youthful exception – not that you’d know it since sleep deprivation took hold), says the worry doesn’t stop. Maybe we never arrive. Perhaps the best any parent can hope is to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, despite the occasional and fleeting desire to launch oneself off the cliff.

The endless nature of motherhood began to dawn on me in the early weeks. I remember the moment well: tiny Ruby sleeping in her pram, me sitting on the loo and suddenly thinking: HOLY SHIT! No, it wasn’t a sacred poo; it was the realisation that, even in this moment of peaceful peeing, I was on the hook now and forever more. I am responsible for another human being.

That information is as intimidating now as it was then, but somehow – like billions of other parents on the planet – I’ve learnt to live alongside it. I’ve found, though, that if I ever experience a temporary amnesia over my new reality as someone’s mother for Christ’s sake – or attempt to momentarily set it aside – I can guarantee a child shaped curveball will come along and smash me in the face. Hence, I may feel contentment unparalleled. But I may never be complacent.

The demands of parenting are particularly live to me as we prepare to double down on our commitment, so it’s worth remembering how readily we embraced the responsibility of Ruby – once the initial shock of her existence on the outside of my body subsided. Because, while we’re focused on her, I realise we’re changing too. We morph into who she needs us to be at any given moment (now I’m fun, now I’m strict, now I’m patient etc etc). And we try to hold on to who we are, or at least who we were.

Parenting, man. It’s a big old mountain, the terrain is unpredictable and I’m so high up I daren’t look down. But there’s stunning scenery along the way. And I’ve discovered this superhuman ability to always keep climbing.

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*A quote from my current read, The Hungover Games by journalist Sophie Heawood. If anyone needs a giggle, it’s bloody hilarious.