There are days when I feel like Super Mum, or just Super Woman in general. Those are usually the days I’m inspired to write, to share my infinite wisdom with the world. That’s the face I prefer to show to the world.
But they’re not the only days. They might not even be in the majority.
Right now, in this very moment, I don’t feel like Super Mum. I’ve just come back inside from a begrudging walk on a grey, rainy day, for which I had to bundle GG up in two pairs of socks and a million layers of clothes and strap him protesting into the stroller. Just to get him to sleep for his afternoon nap. And this was after he tried (well, I tried? We tried?) in his bed for an hour.
I feel like a fucking failure. How can it be that after the amount of books I’ve read, sleep therapists I’ve spoken to, articles I’ve shared, white noise tracks I’ve downloaded I still cannot get our two-year-old to go down to sleep for his afternoon nap in his bed. I must be doing something terribly wrong.
Nights are okay these days. Kind of. Sometimes. Now that I’m writing this I’m questioning whether the good nights are actually just flukes – rather than the result of months and months of working on it as I am wont to assume.
Either way, it’s been like this for months, his weekend nap resistance. Five days a week at daycare he literally runs to his bed for nap time, but when he’s at home with us on the weekends, all bets are off.
For some reason, I was convinced today would be different. I had explained to him what was going to happen, prepared him. I was calm, firm, reassuring – everything I’m meant to be. But the light switch GG can reach from his bed was no match for my resolve, and after an hour I heard a gap in the rain and gave up. With my tail between my legs.
I can rationalize myself out of this place, of course. And I’ll be fine in five minutes. I know that he’s his own person and that this is his thing and that I’m also not the best sleeper in the world and that he’s going through a phase and that actually I’m an awesome mum and bla bla bla bla bla.
But right now, I just don’t feel like Super Mum.
Mama in the Moment 