On having to be supermum

The other day, a friend of mine called me Supermum, because of all the things that I end up doing. Although I batted away that assessment at first (because I don’t think I am doing anything out of the ordinary, and sometimes I even wonder if I do enough), today has been one of those days when I really want to embrace this label, because it makes me feel better about myself, and it makes this seemingly insurmountable task of motherhood appear a lot more do-able… 

The plan of the day was that, as soon as we picked the Girl up from school, we would drive straight on to Southend-on-Sea, to spend the weekend with my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law had been staying with us for three days, to help me sort out the house and prepare the nursery for the Boy. (On Wednesday, we took six bags of kids’ clothes to the charity shop.  Six bags!?!?! How much STUFF do such little people need?!?) Today, we couldn’t do anything more on the clearing out front, because the main task was to pack our things for the weekend. The weekend, did I say? We might as well have been planning to stay for a week or even two, given how frazzled I felt by the time the bags were finally packed and loaded into the car!

Before having children, leaving anywhere for a few days, or even more, was very simple: throw some clothes into a suitcase, take the basic toiletries, toothbrush, etc., and you were ready to rock’n roll. No big deal, and you could concentrate on the excitement and anticipation of your journey. Travelling with children? Ah, well, that is a far more complicated endeavour. I remember the first time I travelled abroad with the Girl, when she was about five months old, and I was taking her to visit my family: I wrote down an entire check list, ranging from clothes, bedclothes, muslins, nappies and wipes, through to medicines, toiletries and toys. An entire arsenal of baby-related paraphernalia, which took far more space in the suitcase than my own things (again, I ask: how much STUFF can such a small person need?!?) Over the years, things had become simpler with the Girl: she stopped needing a pushchair, her medical needs stopped seeming so pressing (in fairness, most times we travelled with Calpol in the bag she didn’t end up *needing* it, but we never wanted to take the chance that she *might*…). I had almost become lulled into a sense of complacency. LITTLE DID I KNOW…

Travelling with two children, especially two who have such a significant age gap between them, is pure MADNESS. I had promised the Girl that I would bring her some dressing up clothes (seeing as she only ever wears a school uniform in the week, she has to get a chance to dress for fun sometimes…); I had to pack her clothes, her toiletries; I had to select her toys carefully, because she has many of them and one can never know for sure which one is the current favourite (I chose Grainne, the Irish rag doll that her Daddy had brought her from Dublin just last weekend, using the excuse that Grainne had never been to Grandma’s before, so she herself had insisted). And, when all that was in the suitcase, I had to fit in all the Boy’s things as well (from the checklist that I drew up four years ago, and which I can now almost recite from memory): nappies, wipes, clothes, bedding, medicines, nail clippers, as well as the all-important baby toys and comforters. Seriously, by the end of this, my head was spinning, but that was not all. I still had to pack for myself, and also for the fourth and biggest child – my husband – because he hadn’t got a chance to do it before going to work, and he was going to join us straight from work in the evening. I also had to pack the Boy’s food, NutriBullet Baby, bibs and spoons, as well as a snack for the Girl to have in the car (and which she devoured in the car, to my great surprise, because I was sure I had made too much – a Nutella sandwich, a packet of raisins, a banana, And, all of this, against the clock, because we had to make sure that everything was in the car in time to be able to buy petrol and collect the Girl from school at 3:20 pm. Seriously, if my mother-in-law hadn’t been with me to remind me of what I needed, my head might well have exploded.

And, after all of this, there was yet more to come. Just looking at all the bags lined up in the hallway made my heart sink. I can barely fit the pushchair into our boot on a normal day, so where was I going to fit ALL THAT?!? Honestly, I think I must have done some sort of magic, because they slotted in, one by one, first in the boot all around the pushchair, then at the children’s feet and in-between their seats – almost as if space itself had expanded and our car had turned into a little Tardis, bewitched by sheer maternal determination.

Again, that sense of complacency was threatening to take over, and again, little did I know that more was yet to come. The journey over is bad enough on a smooth run – an hour and a half down motorways and dual carriageways, especially the dreaded M25, where drivers cross over several lanes at a time, practice undertaking as if it were the latest fad, and push like mad from behind in areas with clearly spelled out speed limits, there can be little fun is that. Then, if you add to that the traffic of a budding Friday afternoon rush hour, things get even more interesting, and if you throw into the mix the continuous and gradually increasing screams of a baby more and more fed up with life, then you’re really talking… After almost an hour of noise pollution, we just had to stop at some services, where the Boy had a feed and a nappy change (and, for a few moments, was utterly delightful, smiley and chatty to a degree that one could just not be cross with him) – but this only ended up costing us fifteen minutes, and apart from the knowledge that we were not letting him wallow in squalor or starvation, it provided us with little else: as soon as the car started moving again, the Boy started screaming again, as if this was his understanding of the fuel that the car needed to go, and without his screams, we would end up stranded…

By the end of a day like this, I am in tatters, and yet, I am feeling strangely accomplished. No, I am not Supermum, far from me the thought. Supermum would have been able to feed the Boy just at the right time, not given him his lunch at 5:30pm, after we had got to Grandma’s house; Supermum would  have timed his naps in such a way that he would have to sleep during the car journey; Supermum would no doubt have had the bags, or even the car, packed days in advance… I am definitely not that mum. And yet, just keeping my act together through all of this, and getting us all in one piece (and with all our STUFF) to our destination, does feel like quite a feat, and I feel I deserve a pat on the back after all of that (I did accept the yummy pancakes with apple and blackberries at dinnertime, so bad for the waistline, but so comforting for the soul)… I do hope I haven’t forgotten anything at home, and to be fair, if I did, there is very little I can do now. Tomorrow, when the kids wake up and the madness and excitement of looking after them start all over again, and especially when I am overwhelmed by their inexhaustible energy and inextinguishable demands, I will remind myself that I CAN be Supermum when I need to. And then, for at least one moment, all will be OK.