Have you learned the Mummy Compromise yet?

We’ve all been there; that time when you really wished that you could do the impossible and split yourself in two. Not physically possible, I know, but it would come in so handy now and again (who am I kidding? Pretty much all the time!).

 

I would love to have another Me; a Work Me to keep the money coming in and a Home Me to clean, cook healthy nutritious dinners and well, clean. But I can’t have two of Me, so we’ve learned to ‘compromise’.

 

If I had known how much I would come to loathe that word before I had kids I think I might not have had kids at all.

In my case, I had this thing where I absolutely had to be the one to bring the kids to their check-ups, doctors appointments, everything. I needed to know exactly what was happening with them, in minute detail and naturally, I didn’t trust anyone to that as well as me, their mother. 

 

It was all sunshine and flowers for the first six months or so; those post natal checkups on a Tuesday at 2pm were a dream, slotted in between a nap and a feed. Why, I even managed to make an afternoon of it, popping to the shops and grabbing a decaf coffee to while away the long day until Daddy came home.

 

Bam, fast forward a couple of months: you’re back to work, barely coping between crèche drop-offs and the piles of laundry piling up, and another check up appointment arrives. This time it’s on a Wednesday at 12pm. How in the heavens are we going to manage this?

 

Eventually I gave in and ‘compromised,’ allowing Daddy to take No.2 to his developmental check-up, with strict instructions to call me as soon as he finished.  So there I was waiting anxiously by the phone like a lovesick teenager, when he rings with the update: all is good, he’s hitting the top of the charts with everything, except his head circumference is ‘extraordinarily large’.

 

Sorry what? Say that again? No, no, you must have that wrong. He’s fine, just look at the cute little head on him, does that look ‘extraordinarily large’ to you. A major freak out later and a panicked phone call to the public health nurse, who reassured me that yes, No.2 was measuring above average in his head circumference but as she so eloquently put it: ‘Sure, look at the head on his father, it’s not from the wind he took it’.

 

She had a point.

 

Thankfully, No.2’s head has since returned to acceptable measures and I’ve made my peace with that difficult word: compromise. 

 

As much as I try, I can’t be there for my kids 24/7, and I don’t have to be. They have two loving parents, never mind grandparents, to help and guide them through this life. The world will not end because I miss bringing them to their doctor’s appointment. I have to remember that while I might miss some things, I still get to do the fun stuff and that’s way better than bringing them for their shots, trust me.