Suburban Mum

I seem to have so many things running through my mind at the moment which, as usual, means I’m not sleeping too well.  It doesn’t help that the kiddo keeps waking up at silly o’clock and coming into the bed with us because he’s scared (of what, we don’t know).

The husband has started a new placement at a different school – a Catholic school in a well-to-do area in Cheshire.  He’s only three days in but the difference in him is astounding.  He says he’s had more help in those three days than he had in the four months he was at the other high school.  He’s enthused about becoming a teacher again.  His mood has lifted which has made both mine and the kiddo’s lift too.  It feels almost like normal family life again.

This follows a horrendous couple of weeks when I’ve asked him to leave on several occasions and on one of them he actually packed his bags and went… for an hour.  He then came back pretending to have forgotten something but I’m pretty sure he hadn’t.  I think he was just surprised that I had called his bluff and just let him go.  I didn’t cry, I didn’t beg, I just let him go.  There was a part of me that felt relieved.  But I’m more relieved that he’s home again.  We will make this work.

I still worry about money because surviving on my salary and his grant/bursary is not easy when you have a mortgage, childcare and two cars to run.  But we’re managing (just) and I still managed to save up to buy my new laptop (which has had to be returned as it’s faulty and I have a very sad face waiting for it’s replacement to arrive).

My health is bothering me but I struggle to do anything about it.  I am horrendously overweight and I’m desperate to lose weight but I don’t try hard enough.  I have a fabulous gym membership courtesy of my boss but I hardly use it (mostly because my feet hurt so much at the moment – but I think this is a vicious circle as I think it’s my weight that’s making them hurt); I pick on food and I comfort eat.  I have a prescription for a weight loss drug but I don’t take it if I know I’m going to be eating something I shouldn’t because I don’t want to suffer the awful side effects  of having eaten too much fat – completely the opposite of what you’re supposed to do.  I’m getting to the point where I may even consider surgery.  Both my parents are overweight and have heart problems (Mum had a major stroke and Dad has a heart valve that needs replacing) and my blood pressure is too high so why can’t I just knuckle down and do something about it?  I know exactly what I need to do but can’t seem to muster up the motivation or the willpower to actually do it.

And then there’s the whole baby thing.  The kiddo is now five and I have always said I wanted to have two children.  I am one of two (my brother is four years’ younger than me) and so is SH (has a younger sister of a similar age gap).  I loved having a constant victim opponent playmate when I grew up.  I would love another baby.  I may not have enjoyed the baby experience last week, but he wasn’t my child and I didn’t know what he wanted or liked or knew his quirks and foibles like you know your own kid.  I get very, very broody.

I hate the idea of the kiddo being an only child.  Why?  I don’t have any experience of being an only child so it’s only my perception that’s influencing me.  Will he be lonely?  Will he be able to cope with decisions in the future (to do with us, his parents) on his own?  Would life not be better with a sibling to support him?

I had this discussion with my mum who pointed out that her younger brother lives in the US Pacific North West and they have little to no communication on a regular basis.  With all the shit she’s had to deal with with my grandmother’s health and the death of her stepfather, she’s had no support from her brother.  She said for all intents and purposes she’s an only child for most things.

There’s also the issue that I’m 38 in a couple of months.  I know women have babies in their forties with no problems and it’s certainly not such a big thing as it was when my mum had my brother (she was 33 and classed as a “geriatric pregnancy”!); this isn’t about how long my biological clock has left to tick.  But do I really want to be running around after another small child when I’m in my forties?  It depresses me that the year the kiddo turns 18, I’ll turn 50, as it is!

At the moment I am far too heavy and unfit to consider getting pregnant and we certainly don’t have the financial means to cope with another child at this moment in time.  But even if we could, having a baby in nine months’ time would mean that the older brother would be nearly six.  When hypothetical new baby is two or three and able to run around and play with his or her older brother, older brother would be eight or nine.  Would he want to play with a toddler?  Would the toddler then grow up almost as an only child with no close siblings to play with?  Would it completely defeat the object?

Am I thinking about all this too much?!