Living a Charmed Life

A few weeks back, my mother's group decided that we should all get out of the house and do a lunch at the new Tapas & Wine Bar in the Town Centre. At this long awaited lunch, one of the mums mentioned that she had been sharing her lunch plans with her husband that morning when he had laughed and made a joke about her 'living a charmed life'. As I sat absorbing this, I felt grateful that my husband had never tried to be quite so hilarious. Perhaps I'm not the right audience for these "oh so funny" comments. Any digs about my easy day would result in a swapsies situation where I would quite happily head off to work and allow my husband a go at living the good life.

I looked around at the seven tired faces before me and doubted very much that any of them felt that they were living a charmed life. Half of the women are still getting up to their babies multiple times during the night. A few have babies that will not sleep at all during the day. All of us have sore backs and shoulders from endless carrying, changing and breastfeeding. Most of us have frightening amounts of hair loss and no opportunity to vacuum it up. Charmed life? Please. These aren't bored, rich women, filling their days with expensive boozy lunches and shopping, these are new mums who spend what little free time they have, googling baby issues and doing their pelvic floor exercises so that they don't wee themselves every time they sneeze.

My morning leading up to the lunch was something out of a Stephen King novel. No one told me that at six months my son would completely change personalities and decide that he cannot play, sleep or fill his nappy without being held while he does it. It had taken me almost 1.5 hours of patting, rocking, shushing, cuddling and finally feeding before I could get him to sleep for his nap. By the time he fell asleep it was time for me to leave so I considered not going as there was no way in hell I was going to wake him. Luckily for me (note the sarcasm) he only slept for 25 minutes, so I decided to show up very late instead.

At the mention of lunch, I'm sure our husbands imagine seven fresh faced women, dressed in their best, clucking over their babies and sharing recipes (I admit, their was one discussion about lamb shanks), but the reality of a lunch involving seven new mothers and seven young babies is that there was at least one unsettled baby the entire time. Just when one was finally asleep in their pram, another would start with the I'm hungry/tired/simply bored routine. No one wants to be the table annoying the rest of the patrons with noisy children and prams blocking every possible exit, but that was us. We tried hard to read the elegant paper menus without the babies tearing them up, and we all mentally frowned at the prices and tried not to let it show on our faces. A lunch with the girls is not without guilty spending, after all, we are the ones that are no longer contributing financially to the household. Losing an entire income sure makes this charmed life difficult.

This was not a lunch for women living a charmed life. It was a lunch for a group mothers trying to do something normal and understanding that they will pay for it later with an overtired child. It was a lunch to break up the long, lonely week at home where housework is a luxury, not a given. The lunch was to remind ourselves that their are other food options besides toast and long life soup. It was a chance to put on nice (pre-baby) clothes even if they immediately get dirtied up by dribble and sticky hands. To be clear, husbands, a charmed life would be a fancy restaurant with no thought of the cost. A charmed life would be babies at home with the nanny and a guilt free glass of wine without timing breastfeeds. My idea of a charmed life has a housekeeper to take care of the constant washing and endless dishes and perhaps a husband who is capable of putting a dirty spoon in the dishwasher.

Maybe next time boys, thoughts to yourselves.