Nanny

my Nanny with me and my brother

It was my Mum’s birthday this week. She has just turned fifty-two. (Sorry mum, to put that out there, but you’re a young Mum, so I thought you wouldn’t mind). My mum’s mother, my Nanny, died when she was fifty-two. It is completely unfathomable to me that my mum lost her mother so young. My heart breaks to think of the void that would be left in my life and now the life of my children if she wasn’t here with us.

My mother is a beautiful person. She has a calm and gentle spirit and in turn it makes me calm to be around her. Seeing her with my children brings me endless joy. To see how much they adore each other and how much time she has for them. It also saves my sanity, that because she is here I can sleep during the day after late nights with a grizzly little boy and a hungry little newborn. The grandparents saved our sanity today. They let us recuperate after a very difficult night.

We had the worst night we have ever had with our boy last night. He was awake and screaming from 7pm until 4am. Not just crying, but screaming. I was at my breaking point. I didn’t know what to do. He had no symptoms of illness and he’s too little to be able to tell me what is wrong. So I am playing a guessing game all night. Is he sick with something ordinary like a cold? Is he sick with something much worse and life-threatening and should I take him to hospital? Is it psychological, because Dean is here and he’s not coping? Is he faking it? Is it because he’s been up for six hours past his bedtime and he’s ridiculously over tired? I ran through all these things in my mind while he was screaming at me. I couldn’t do anything to help him. I picked him up and he still screamed, I put him down, I ignored him, I gave him panadol, I put on some dvd’s, I gave him to his father, to his grandparents, he still screamed.

He only wanted me, but I could not ease his distress. I got the the point that I just couldn’t cope with the situation and I took him to the emergency room. I was desperate for someone else to see his pain, and see my pain and help me to do something. Even though I knew we would sit there for hours and they would just check him and send him home. I needed someone to share the pain with, to tell me that he was going to be OK, or to give me some solution. I kept thinking, how do I find a solution to a problem, when I don’t know the problem! I had a lot of sympathetic glances in the waiting room. I was so upset to see him in the state he was that I just had to cry. It’s my way to relieve stress, I cry.

I was anxious that we would be there all night, and that I needed to be home to feed Dean. I had expressed one bottle but he is a hungry boy and I knew he’d need more than that. My first experience of being torn between serving the needs of both my babies. After a few hours at the hospital they said he has a mild infection and gave him some strong pain relief. I brought him home and he cried for three more hours and then passed out from exhaustion. Even after he finally went to sleep he still woke every half an hour and we had to settle him.

Finally it was the light of day, after the longest night I have had in ages. My Mum and my Dad who is here visiting too, took both the boys so I could sleep all afternoon. If they hadn’t been here I don’t know what kind of state I would be in now. I would be a zombie. I am so thankful for grandparents. I love them for being there for me when I need them.