Who Cares?

Sorry I’ve been quiet lately – I didn’t realize that parenthood would be quite so time-consuming!

Seriously; this new arrival completely turned our lives upside down in ways we could never have expected. It was wonderful, of course, but also extremely disruptive.  I had to convert my home office into an extra bedroom. T and I quickly realized we needed to completely reset our body clocks to deal with the new sleeping requirements. I got irrationally emotional and started questioning the way I live my life. We had absolutely no time to ourselves and couldn’t even pull together the energy to go out to T’s beloved karaoke evening at the local.  It started taking a toll on my marriage, one from which we’re still trying to recover equilibrium.
The cause of all this chaos? My seventeen-year-old brother - J - who stayed with us for ten days while my parents were away.

I have a new admiration for parents, and a renewed appreciation that I am completely not ready to have children.  This one went out most days, and did not by any means require constant care, but he did require a lot of lifts, a mountain of food, and a not insubstantial amount of attention.  The Wii console suddenly came into its own.

Thankfully this bundle of joy was not given to us for life, just for a mid-length holiday and we celebrated his safe delivery [back to my parents’ house] with kir royales.

However, sometime within the next few years its likely that I’ll be having children for real.  From what I hear, it will be far more all-consuming than merely cooking, cleaning and driving for my youngest brother, and I’m sure I’ll develop an even deeper concept of just how much parents sacrifice for their offspring.  I’m sure that I’ll want to do for my mum and dad everything they did for me. I’m sure that will include dropping off all my kids with them when I fancy a city-break.