No Rest For The With-Kid

Oh, the hazards of parenting!!

I recently buggered my foot/ankle in an entirely ungraceful fashion.

How?

By running up the rather solid marble staircase in our villa to retrieve my hysterical 3 year old. I thought he had morbidly hurt himself somehow with the screams, but apparently he was just sad to accidentally wake up alone on a Friday night!

I tend to run rapidly up the staircase like this a lot in my career as a parent. As any tot parents will know, blood-curdling-sudden-heart-attack-inducing screaming comes with the job!

Though, this time, I didn’t really run on account of somehow kicking the front of one of the first steps with the top of my foot. I then basically fell full-weight forward over myself to cause the foot/ankle buggery (yup, did I mention ungraceful?)

It popped. It damn well hurt. I may have seen a few stars in my eyes!

I laid on our stone floor as the screaming 3 year old made his way downstairs, while my chronically stressed husband ran from the kitchen to asses the carnage that had just descended.

“Silly Bambi, you’ll be fine” he said after examining me and heaving me up from the floor towards the couch, before pouring me a large glass of medicinal red!

It still hurt a lot through the night though, so I went for an x-ray the next morning. Luckily it was just a bad sprain…as far as just bad sprains can be classed as “lucky”.

I was told to “RICE” it by the nice Mr Dr – Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation – until a check-up 7 days later.

Cool, yeah, I can do that. And guess what!! I didn’t even need a sick note on account that I don’t work. Easy, right? Aside from one small detail…

I HAVE TWO YOUNG KIDS.

Two young highly demanding kids. A husband that works 12 hours a day. No nursery and no domestic help.

It truly is me, myself and I at home with the kids right now.

So, back to resting. I sponsored Sunday almost completely with back to back episodes of Daniel Tiger.

We stayed home, but I was climbing the walls by around 1:00. The house looked like some cataclysmic world event had happened as Zachy raced through activities and demanded sandwiches on repeat.

I just can’t watch such destruction unfold!

We therefore escaped the house the next day and went to soft play down the road, where, ironically, I thought I could rest better as he burned some energy!

When we got home some semblance of order had to be kept up, so I cooked, did the laundry, did some mediocre tidying via the means of shoving toys into a corner, answered the never-ending requests for sandwiches, and juggled and jiggled and calmed the baby on repeat.

My foot felt fine, actually. But it paid me back later by stiffening up and burning all night.

Same the next day, and the next. RICE, you say?

I dragged my two screaming gremlins into the doctors office on the morning of the check-up. Zachy, trying to demonically claw his way back to Daniel Tiger episodes having been allowed to get slightly addicted over those seven days!

Assessing a loose, crunching ankle and the apparent inability to just put my feet up and chill at home, it was decided that I’ll have a removable cast to wear at night to at least immobilize it for 12 good hours. Sexy, I know!! And a bit mortifying…

It’s all good though and it’ll be fine. But really, what I’ve come to realise is that even if I am at home “relaxing”, I am never relaxing. Never. There is always something to do, someone to calm, something to pick up. Always a bum to wipe and a mouth to feed. A batch of laundry to load. An evening meal to cook.

The life of a stay at home mother is a never ending cycle of just trying to stay above water. And meeting EVERYONE’S needs first before your own…even when it’s medically recommended.

Bottom line? Motherhood is an ACTIVE job. We do not sit at home and relax all hours of the day. We’re up, we’re down, we’re in, we’re out. We’re awoken and awake all. the. time.

They say there is no rest for the wicked. Well, there is DEFINITELY no rest for the WITH KID.

Never injure yourself or get sick as a parent. Just don’t. In fact, I’m wholly sure there should be some form temporary immunity from this as a parent of littles! What do you reckon?

Abbey x

P.s. Always read the instructions before using staircases! They’re treacherous!