Mallory is the founder of The Parlour, Hackney and will be talking about beauty and wellness for us and how to juggle this with a child attached to you!
Here is the first instalment and enjoy.
Bad Mum? I’m a
Terrible Mum.
Today my daughter fell down the stairs. That’s a bit melodramatic – she lost her
footing while navigating climbing down two steps and slipped backwards. She did land right on the back of her head
though. I keep telling myself that’s the
place you’d want your kid to hit their head if they had to. She’s grown so much recently and is really
quite agile, strong and resilient (so says her mother) and I got
complacent. It’s making me feel
sick. She seems to be over it and I’m
not so sick that I can’t manage my locally roasted artisan coffee (I’m rolling
my eyes too, it’s okay) but motherly guilt always seems to be present, even
through the coffees.
My usual position is to be mindful: acknowledging the guilt
and then saying ‘fuck off guilt’ and just roll with it what makes us all
comfortable. To wit: as I write, E is
asleep in a sling gingerly suckling on my boob.
She’s eighteen months. Don’t
judge me; it’s that motherly guilt at hearing my child upset which has led me to
choose the path of telling guilt to fuck off. Unlike hitting her head, though, I really
don’t think this is going to mess her up.
In fact, I love these moments of quiet where I provide everything she
needs. So, maybe it’s actually motherly
selfishness? It’s a minefield.
Anyway, I digress.
The real reason I have written is to discuss all the things I – and
probably you too – do with a toddler hanging off of you. It’s not so very different from me still
boobing my eighteen-month old to sleep. Hear
me out: letting your kid hang off of you while you [insert task] comes from a
place of love, guilt, selfishness, and not just walking but running down the path
of least resistance. Because Christ, who
has the time or the energy for anything different? And when the fuck else are we supposed to put
our make-up on?!
I’d love to know what you all get up to with your kid wreaking
havoc in the background and/or on top of you.
Below are the usual things you will see me doing while E harasses me:
Morning Routine
I think I am probably most permissive for this routine. It’s very important to me to go through my
ablutions. I think it’s important for
anyone who values this sort of thing and it shouldn’t be infringed upon
lightly. My morning ritual is often a
delicately choreographed ballet of an up and down, dive bombing sticky fingered
toddler and me strategically sacrificing certain cosmetics to the cause of
keeping E occupied. You will note the
various items spread about the place in a household favourite – the cosmetics
treasure hunt; the breastfeeding while attempting to make myself look half
human; and the sacrificial ear buds and jewellery (as my Other Half says: ‘it’s
a good thing I never buy you expensive things’) all over the floor while E
tries to climb on me and I photograph it.
Somehow I get my shit together. I manage two serums (one
and two
– alternating days), snail
mucin essence (highly recommend, will discuss in another post) moisturiser,
SPF beauty balm,
foundation,
highlighter (and
because I am in denial that it’s still wintery, a bit of bronzer), blush,
brow brushing and a
bit of lipstick if
E hasn’t grabbed it off the table and/or I’ve managed to wrestle it off of
her. There’s nothing I can do about my
hair so I don’t try beyond curl specific shampoo/conditioner/cream
once a week; it looks a bit crazy but that’s reflective of my life so I go with
it.
Dressing
Dressing deserves a category of its own. When dressing it is important not to flash
the boobs or I will be harangued into ‘feeding’ (quotation marks because E is
not feeding in these circumstances, she is boob cuddling™) and it will take an
extra twenty minutes to leave the house if we go through the motions. Sometimes it’s lovely, most of the time we
need to leave. Instead E will ‘dress’
herself. In my knickers. But hey, it works. If we’re in a rush to leave it looks like a
frilly knickers thief has burgled us (so, always) but at least I got dressed
and my coat is the right side in (true story – one day it wasn’t. all. day.)
Exercise
I often exercise at home in a bid to save a bit of money and
just get it done with as little faff as possible to keep myself ticking over
until I get a few hours to myself on a Saturday to go to a class. However, this often means that I will be
holding E for most of it. She could be
happily playing but as soon as I start doing squats she’ll be absolutely
desperate to be picked up. Often I
relent – I look at it as an added challenge to have an unstable 10kg weight
while working out. Push-ups and donkey
kicks are made doubly challenging as she climbs onto my back and bounces
around. Seriously though. It takes a lot of core stability and correct
alignment to do exercise while holding your kid! This one maybe you should try.
Preparing any food
(in this case grinding my coffee for breakfast)
Sometimes, no matter how ridiculous the
circumstance, E needs to be held. I
think she’s just nosy. The morning I
took this photo was no different. I was
grinding coffee beans (manual grinder – I’m cheap) and had to hold her at the
same time. There is no silver lining benefit to doing any sort of food prep with
a nosy toddler hanging off of you. It is
hard. It sucks. It often results in E lying on the kitchen floor whining while I chop sweet
potatoes and half laugh at her/half reassure her.
We all have our limits though. I am sure more than one of you are appalled
at this list. Does it mean you’re a Bad
Mum if you do as I do and shrug your shoulders at the ear buds and underwear
scattered around your room? Am I lazy?
Too lax? I try to think of it more as a
philosophy: in child rearing as in life, I pick my battles. My friends always describe me as very
tolerant and relaxed. I don’t know if
that’s accurate – I think it’s more that I feel it’s important to look at the
big picture. To end on a trite note:
don’t sweat the small stuff, you can always pick those ear buds up.
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