Solo-parenting shouldn’t be a massive deal to me. Lots of people do it 24/7, without choice. But I write about it anyway, because nothing quite makes me feel more like a parent than four in the morning after days of sleep deprivation, running between two waking children, scrubbing sick out of the carpet, and feeling like all I want to do is sit in a corner and fall apart.
I am pathetic with people being sick. When Sam is here I make him deal with the sick and I find excuses to be in another room. I have been known to launch Arlo off my lap at the first sign of a gagging noise. So, because Arlo hadn’t had a tummy bug since he was 15 months old, and because Sam was away, obviously it was bound to happen that I would be woken by a puking child at 1am. And I had to man up and deal with it. Every half an hour until the sun started to rise.
Other great things about Sam’s week away were: Arlo deciding that 3.30am was the new morning time, every day. A 12 week old baby with a cold. No more than three hours broken sleep a night. A barely functioning parent.
So, that was fun.
It was meant to be a week of quiet evenings and getting stuff done. I wanted it to be a week full of fun activities for Arlo. Instead, it turned into a week of survival. And YouTube.
All parenting standards went out the window (not that I have many anyway) as I allowed Arlo to watch as much YouTube as his heart desired. YouTube for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Thomas collections, unpacking Thomas trains, opening Thomas kinder eggs, Thomas episode reviews.
His new favourite phrase is “Hello YouTubers”.
It was nice having the double bed all to myself though.
7 comments
Bloody hell, I bet you were so happy to have Sam home! Matt always deals with Iyla’s puke too when she’s ill, which is weird as he claims to be really bad with sick, I didn’t think I was but it is so awful. When Iyla had her last bug it was def a two person job and that was without a baby in the mix too. I love the image in my head of Arlo saying ‘Hello YouTubers’, cracks me up! x
Yeah, it was pretty much worse case scenario (well, actually, that would have been if we’d ALL gotten ill). Rory is normally a pretty decent night time sleeper, but he chose that week to be up loads too. Toddler puke is not fun : (
Crikey that really does sound like hell you poor thing! We have been overdosing on YouTube a fair bit lately too – the things F comes across are sometimes pretty obscure but he seems to like watching chuggington in German 😉
It’s fascinating the clips they find interesting, isn’t it?
My goodness Chloe! You are a trooper! Well done for surviving!
We all have moments when technology ‘helps’ us with out parenting on hard hours/days/weeks. Hope this week has been better!
Oh gosh you really had a week of it! I always let the husband deal with toddler puke, if I did it, it would end up double the amount! I cannot deal with sick! Bleugh!