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kerrythorne
May 10, 20238 min read

I Think I May Have Found The Answer

Updated: May 11, 2023

I think I may have found the answer.


After weeks, if not months, of feeling a little out of sorts, of finding numerous things to blame my stress on, it has finally dawned on me.


It’s not Aurora and her tantrums or mood swings. They are difficult in their own way to navigate, but I am sure they are heightened because of how I am currently feeling.


It’s not Luna’s increasing amount of night waking, and inability to settle as well as she used to, although that is physically and mentally exhausting.


It isn’t having to do 80% of bath and bedtimes single-handedly, although it still remains my least favourite time of the day and I find it almost triggering as we are climbing up the stairs, ready to start the whole ordeal. We could have had the best day, calm, fun, enjoyable, I still find this the biggest challenge and can’t seem to find a solution.


It isn’t the fact that my colleagues have the ability to make social plans and seem confused when I say I can’t join in as I have two children at home.


It isn’t the fact that we seem to be in a strange limbo state of wanting to move back to Berkshire, but not yet making any actual steps. Waiting for the right time, which will hopefully be soon, but even then, the move itself won’t be for a year or so. And then there is so much attached to that decision. I will be leaving my little group of friends that I have made here, and their children who are all Aurora and Luna’s age. The network that I have created, that has helped me through so much. My Village.

Yet on the flip side, the thought of moving back closer to my family and childhood friends is almost too much to think about. It fills me with so much excitement. To have the girls grow up close to their cousins will be amazing, spending more time together as a family is everything I want and need. It truly is the most important thing to me in the world. The ability to be able to see my friends without planning an entire road trip and weekend stay will be incredible. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself. Even with all those thoughts running through me, this still is not the reason I have been feeling off.


It's not thinking that I feel overwhelmed in group situations, as after our Coronation Party we had with the NCT group, I have realised that that is not the case. I didn’t feel overwhelmed while I was there, in fact I love occasions like that. I love cracking jokes, and making people laugh, it is what I live for. I love seeing the girls play with their friends and hearing Aurora say please and thank you without being prompted. But in saying all that, I did still have the same internal feeling as I did at the party and at the large play date, that I have mentioned before. It wasn’t anxiety, it was a little grey cloud of unhappiness.


This does not in any way mean that I am unhappy. Far from it, but it has come to my attention that I am craving a few things, to fill that void and bring my sunshine back.


3 things;


I need more time together as a family.


I need more time alone with Luke.


I need more time alone.



The reality of only having one day a fortnight with Luke, and the girls, is not enough. It always sounded tough on paper, but it is really starting to take its toll on me, and subsequently the girls as well.


I could see myself getting frustrated about small and silly things, not being in the best mood when we shared our brief breakfast/coffee time together each morning, and complaining a lot more. I don’t like being like that and from the outside it could have seemed as though my problem was with my loved ones, but they were just getting the brunt of it. It wasn’t extreme, but I could feel it start to happen so was desperate to work out the cause before it progressed any further.


Since having the girls, I have strangely become less emotional. Don’t get me wrong, I will cry at reality TV, choke at a touching advert, or well up at an emotional song, but in general I would say I have balanced out more than before I was a mum. It happened from the moment I fell pregnant with Aurora, I heard of everyone else’s hormones going crazy, or them having hysterical breakdowns, yet I didn’t cry once. But in this last month, I have started to cry a bit more, be it through frustration with the girls, or about something completely random. Sunday morning as Luke was just about to go to work, the flood gates opened, and I couldn’t stop. That is when all this realisation washed over me.


We had a long talk about it that evening and decided to investigate childcare options for Luna to go to on Fridays. That will mean that I can work Monday and Friday each week and we will get every Tuesday together. This still doesn’t sound a lot, but it will be twice as much as we currently have.


The Bank Holidays this month have not helped and that may have been the kicker! I’ve been working the daytime as usual, coming home, and then Luke has been going straight off to work the remainder of the day. One of our sacred evenings taken from us, on three of the four weeks.

If childcare proves to be too expensive for what we need, then it may be a case of me dropping a day’s work, but hopefully we can work at an alternative. We shall see.


As well as all of this, Luke and I need some time together away from the girls. It’s difficult to organise this as it means we either go to Newbury and stay at my mums so she can have the girls, or she comes here. Even if we manage to arrange that, Luna tends to wake up 1.75 seconds after I leave the house. It is very rare that she then settles without me feeding her. I would like to make a point of the fact that she does not wake at this time if I am at home. How do they know you're going!? I think we have only been out for dinner once since Luna was born, on my birthday, and then had the night of our wedding away from her, but that’s it. In just over a year.

We need more date nights. We try and make one of our evenings a week an informal date, having dinner at the table, no screens or devises, music playing and talking about anything and everything, instead of the usual eating dinner on our laps on the sofa, whilst watching our latest series. But it's not the same as getting a little dressed up, literally leaving the house with no children attached to us, and enjoying a couple of hours of us.


I’m really hoping that after our holiday, at the end of this month, I can wean Luna off of breast feeding, and that will have a dramatic impact on her waking at night and settling. It worked for Aurora, at 13 months, so fingers crossed it will for Luna too!


Currently Luke and I will try and have snip-its of conversations over coffee, while the girls have breakfast, but inevitably these all get cut short because one, if not both, of the girls are experiencing the end of the world. Every. Single. Day.

I end almost every conversation with the sentence, ‘We’ll just talk in 16 years’.



Then there’s time for me. Even though I have most of my evenings alone, that doesn’t feel like real ‘me-time’.

I’m still on duty, anticipating my next call-out.

Plus, my evenings seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Time seems to be slipping when putting the girls to bed, and I may not get back downstairs until 7.30-7.45, maybe even 8pm. By the time I have then tidied the kitchen and done the washing up from dinner, potentially hung a load of washing up, and moved into the living room to put the toys away and finally sit on the sofa, it could be gone 8.30pm.

Now old me (before 2023) would have thought this was early, but new me likes to go to bed between 9.30 and 10pm. This doesn’t leave a lot of time.

Especially now that I am writing my blog on Wednesday evenings, which I don’t want to forfeit in any way, so that is one evening gone.

Thursdays I do my Interior Design course, which again, takes another evening away. I’m glad that I did this (inexpensive) course first as a taster, as I think it has made me realise that I simply don’t have the time right now to do a more intense one. I would like to do a few more like this, gaining experience and knowledge at my own speed, but a legitimate college course may need to wait until I have a little more free time – haha when will THAT be?!

So, this leaves me with 2 evenings, when I like to catch up on some of the series I watch on my own and then BAM, it’s Sunday night again and Luke is off. I need more hours in a day and more days in a week!


Every month I do sneak off for half an hour to get my nails done, and that does feel luxurious, but it is always a rush job, trying to squeeze it into that one family day a fortnight that we have.


I don’t know what I would want to do, that constitutes as ‘me-time’, but I don’t think it needs to be structured. Meeting a friend for dinner, wine night with the NCT girls, seeing a friend for coffee, doing the food shop alone. Maybe a spa day, or even just a massage.

Activities for me to remind myself who I am. Not who I am away from being a mum, as that is who I am now. I don’t feel as though I’ve lost my identity as this IS my identity now. Let’s be real, if you meet up with a friend who also has kids, all you do is talk about them the entire time. But just time away from the insistent responsibility of it all. Having the ability to think about only one person, instead of three.


I just think being back closer to Newbury will help with all of this. Family will be able to help a little more with the girls and it won’t be such a mammoth journey either way. Although I don't want it to seem as though I need them to help me all the time. I want to be able to do it all on my own. It's not their responsibility to make my life easier, of course, but having the assistance there as an option will be life changing. It's such a fine line, between stubbornness of thinking and believing that I've got this, and have come this far doing the majority on my own, and then feeling as though if I don't get some support sooner or later I am going to crumble and fall. I know that looking after myself and my needs a little more will only ever be beneficial to the girls.

I would love to join a yoga class, but I don’t want to sacrifice one of the few evenings I have with Luke to do that.


Why is having children such a logistical nightmare. I feel like that side of it is rarely spoken about. Why did no one warn me!? They’re just so present all the time!



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