Super Mumma, or Super Lover ?

It’s a funny thing being a parent. Ultimately there is for some, a burning desire to be a parent. It’s a feeling that (for some) bolts out of nowhere like suddenly waking up one day and realising you yearn for coffee but the thought and taste of it the day before was just bitter, just like the yearning to be a parent, yesterday there was nothing, today, it’s all you can think about.

What’s funny, is once you are blessed with a fresh smelling, cooey looking little bundle of cutey love, you find yourself in a whirlwind of ‘moan, moan, moan,’ and the inner voice in you suddenly says, ‘have you heard yourself? You’ve become a moaning myrtle!  

I’m not sure every parent is the same, mostly you just see visions of families looking gleamingly happy, their Instagram posts full of perfectly clean babies, with perfectly clean houses and perfectly happily ever after backdrops of blue horizons and orange sunsets! What’s more, they actually stick the knife in even further with images of intimate selfies, both parents perfectly perched on each other’s lips! But never fear, if you haven’t already learned, hear me now fellow parents, ‘NEWSFLASH,’ Instagram is FAKE!  

What’s most amusing along this parenthood rollercoaster of a ride, is that no one said before you decided to have a baby, that it may well be at the cost of your sanity but more importantly your relationship! No one warned me, that despite being blessed with life’s truly remarkable gift, you may in the meantime, lose the next best thing to you, that being, your boyfriend and fellow ‘parenteer.’ Let’s be honest, no relationship is perfect and for those who live a life of countless, romantic check ins at London’s finest of dining’s, snapping your overpriced plate of food, whilst tagging yourself in the restaurants Insta page, let me tell you ravers and fellow pending parents, your date nights are numbered.  

Life before parenthood, led Harry and I on a rocky but mostly thrilling road. Our earlier years were spent in the hub of London’s darkest and dinginess rave dens, seeing the night through a sunset and into a sunrise. We lived together in a one-bedroom flat and when we were not raving we would spend our Sundays in bed, mostly hungover. They were love verses hate fuelled years, one moment you’re ‘crazy in love,’ the next, ‘Enemies at the Gate, but what didn’t break us, made us stronger. Then came the travelling years, two and a half years of glorious, unbeatable and unfathomable adventure. Reaching the lowest of the low and the highest of the high, life for a moment was one big, wide beautiful adventure. On our return, our love for traveling was overcome by the desire to seek adulthood and so it was two years on, one pandemic later, one multiple pregnancy survived and finally we found ourselves shacked up in our own love shack, babies and all.

 

Our baby boom, whilst at times euphoric, found us, a couple, once consumed by their love for each other, then found ourselves a little undesirable, unshaven and unwanted. We had become totally consumed by the reality of keeping two very tiny, very beautiful very precious human beings alive. One day, in the midst of midnight feeds, ever depreciating sleep and countless injectors of caffeine, we realised that, (and for the benefit of my parents reading this, I shall choose my words wisely) our love life, our passion that burning flame that had so bought us together, was dying out!

Once two love birds in a king-sized bed, spending our boozy weekends not far beyond the walls of our love nest, were now uncomfortably wedged apart by two bundles of wriggling joy (or wriggling anger) a far arm stretch away from each other. Overnight Freshly shaven legs, became trunks of bristly mass, freshly highlighted and groomed hair became a bundle of wiry mess and what was once youthful dewy skin, was now a palette of dark tones. We had got caught in a web of all things baby and had slipped into survival mode, any compassion or alone time was jaded by the desire to sleep, the desire to slip under the bedsheets and never to rear you head in the twin realm again.  

Harry and I had become passing ships, he’d return from work and that was my signal to get some ZZZZZZs before my half of the night shift took place. The sound of his key in the door, suddenly triggered a storm of anxiety, just hours later, he would collect me from the serenity of my bed and we would trade roles, he would sleep and I would take over the night shift. For the first few months of Albie and Henry’s life, we were servants to the grip of a twin allegiance.  

After the first few weeks (months maybe, it’s all a blur), of life with Albie and Henry, days began to take a different from. My new mission, get busy parenting and get busy loving, a new pledge to myself, after attempting to be mum of the year, one must honour service to one’s better half. So, out came the razor, lounge wear was exchanged for smart wear and granny knickers were swapped for a more complimenting thong! The next move was ‘operational kick baby twin boys out of mumma’s bed.’ That was merely child’s play, after two restless nights, those boys were right back where they should be, waking five to ten time a night but at least in their own bed.

I can hear all the feminist out there crying in dismay! Why oh why must a woman make herself better presented to be wanted? Calm down sisters, it’s not about that, I’ve had Harry bent over the toilet seat with me, massaging one’s bum cheeks to help a very constipated post -C-section Mumma go to the toilet. That man has quite simply seen me and my worst, most vulnerable and most gruesome, it seems not much can discourage a man and his burning libido!  Making an effort ladies, is not for Harry, nor for any other man, it’s for me, it’s for you, it’s for that freshly dishevelled mother who once showed of her six pack loud and proud, now hidden in all things lounge wear, grey and oversized. Sprucing ones self-up, reminds you that there’s more to life than just the motherhood realm but another life, a life once forgotten, one full of passionate all nighters, fine dining with trips to the nail parlours, gyms and swanky hotels. So, it was in our power to make a change, to bring back what made Harry and Ria so cosmic, Albie and Henry had placed a new path in front of us but the old path had not been written off as history yet.  

So, with a little TLC and a ‘STOP RIGHT THERE’ sign placed at the foot of the bed, to somehow remind ourselves, that not all nights were we permitted to fall at the hands of pure exhaustion but to rejoice for a second, in everything that was pre twin, pre parenthood and hail ‘Harry and Ria’ against the headboard again!

Suddenly we had but a snippet of our sanity back, passion, love, mummy and daddy time, lust, fireworks, nooky, rumpy pumpy, whatever you want to call it was rejoiced again and merely at the price of shaved legs and a faded old thong. After our little freeze frame of time, our lust for one another, was no longer ‘the elephant in the room,’ Albie and Henry had not only taught us how to be patient and resilient but they had made us realise, the next best thing in life to them, was each other and no matter how tired, how drained how bitterly resentful at times of each other we were, always address that elephant in the room and put that old thong on!