Parenting | Motherhood

As an Exhausted Young Mother, the Most Unlikely Experience Became My ‘Winter Break’

Perspective is a fine thing for turning a bad situation into a better situation

Parents of young children are some of the most overworked people on the planet. And, dare I say, mothers may have it just that little bit tougher than fathers. If for no other reason, because we often take on more of the responsibility for the children and the home, simply because that’s how our emotions guide us.

We read stories all the time of mothers feeling strung out and worn down, and needing a break.

That’s exactly how I was feeling for much of the time that my children were small (and my son isn’t completely out of the “small” stage yet, either). And I always jump at any opportunity for a break from routine and responsibility.

I have always found winter the hardest. We never have as much energy and getting moving can feel like more of a struggle when it’s cold. But, as a mother, I always found myself responsible for getting everyone else moving, so there was no excuse for me.

In addition to that, until four years ago, I always lived somewhere with a wood-burning stove as the main heating source and this involved an endless feat of lugging logs, chopping kindling, cleaning out the stove, and generally being on the case constantly to ensure it doesn’t ever go out.

There’s always a lot more laundry that needs to be done in winter since everyone is wearing more clothes, and when you have small people to dress as well as yourself, that’s a lot of dressing, along with the putting on of coats, hats, gloves, and boots, every single time you go out of the house.

It’s mentally draining because there is literally no time to stop and take stock. So finding any opportunity to not have to be weighed down by responsibility and have just a little bit of freedom to sit and read without guilt is really, really hard.

One January, when my eldest daughter was seven, she attended a homeschooling group on a beautiful site owned by one of the homeschooling parents. The family who owned it were really lovely — there was mum, dad, ten-year-old daughter, and a baby boy. And then there was Millie the cat — the mother of my cat, Leela — and a collie dog.

The family allowed the children to wander and interact with them all during the day, even though their private home was not used for the group’s activities.

One lunchtime, my daughter and her best friend were playing around the place and met the dog on their wanderings. They both went to pet him but must have taken him by surprise and he snapped and caught my daughter’s hand in his mouth.

Unsurprisingly, she was very upset. He had punctured the skin of her finger and she was in some pain. I took her away and straight to the nurse at our local doctors’ surgery, who then bathed it in distilled water, the treatment she said was the recommended one and bandaged it up. We were instructed to come back two to three days later.

However, at 4 am the next morning, she awoke, screaming in pain. I called the hospital as soon as I could to request a tetanus jab, since I was freaking out about what could be happening to cause this sudden increase in pain. The doctor I spoke to said he would arrange that for me but I would need to bring her into Accident and Emergency for them to assess her. Leaving my younger girl with my partner, we set off to our local A&E at Torbay Hospital.

By the time I got her there, she was screaming the place down. Thankfully, they didn’t keep us waiting for long and took her through to be seen. After a dose of morphine to calm her down, the doctor I had originally spoken to was able to take a look and send her through for an x-ray.

The result that was shown was that she had an infection in her tendon and a tiny fracture in her finger. She would need to be kept in to have her finger cleaned out under a general anaesthetic, along with intravenous antibiotics and painkillers.

The entire day, we sat in the children’s section of A&E, and I read book after book to her to keep her calm. Finally, at around 7.30 pm, a nurse came to collect us to take us to the children’s ward.

As soon as she was settled, she was given dinner and I headed to the canteen to grab something before they closed.

Back on the ward, we had one of the private rooms with a pull-down parent’s bed. The area outside of our room had brightly painted walls and a tank full of tropical fish. There was a parent’s room where we could make ourselves tea, coffee and toast, a library filled with more books, which I immediately helped myself to a pile of, and a playroom filled with toys.

That first evening was a little traumatic as they set her up with a canula through which she received her first dose of antibiotics and painkillers. It was around half past eleven by the time we both settled down to sleep.

Having a full, undisturbed night’s sleep wasn’t on the cards since she had her next doses of medication at two in the morning, and then again at 6 am.

By the next day, she was exhausted. The nurse brought her a bowl of breakfast cereal, only to snatch it away again when instructed that she needed to wait to eat until we knew whether or not surgery would be scheduled for that day. How to traumatise a traumatised child even further.

As she lay there crying, I held her head and her hand until she eventually drifted off.

At this point, you are probably wondering where the “winter break” I mentioned in the title was.

Well, you see, once we had the doctor’s verdict and the scheduled surgery underway, I was able to sneak away to buy some nice foods and nip to the second hand bookshop. The surgery was successful and she began to relax into her temporary home, since they declared that she would need to stay for a few days to continue to have the IV antibiotics administered.

Although we were stuck inside, the room was well-heated and we had an enormous window that looked out across the town of Torquay towards the sea. The sky was a beautiful blue and the sun shone brightly, so our room was often filled with its bright rays, which added an extra layer of warmth when it fell on where we sat.

I picked up a little notebook and pen at the hospital shop since I always need to be writing something, and, when she would sleep or be happily watching some children’s television, I would sit and write, read a book, or go for a walk in the sunshine around the hospital grounds.

Despite it being far from a luxury stay; despite the tears that came every time they sent fluids through her canula, and despite the regular wakings at night, there was something incredibly healing for me in those few days.

I had no responsibilities, no cooking, cleaning, wood-chopping, or laundry to do. Nothing. We had a well-heated space that involved no effort on my part, filled with winter sunshine. And we had lovely views.

Food may have been far from luxury but you can’t imagine how great hospital tea and toast can taste when you have a little bit of time to focus on yourself.

The hospital staff in the children’s ward were kind and jolly people and we had TV and books on tap — for my daughter, at least. Internet cost a bomb for me to use so I didn’t bother using it much. Instead, I switched off from the online world and gave myself a break there too.

After four days, my partner came in with our littlest — then four years old — who was given a teddy by the hospital staff and had a great time in the playroom on the ward. She spent the afternoon with us while my partner worked.

That evening, he remained at the hospital with our eldest while I took my little one home and a day later they both returned to join us. My daughter now only had to take antibiotics orally and had her hand in a plaster cast to mend the fracture. Happily, she recovered well.

So ended my unlikely “winter break.” I may have returned to normal life after that but I couldn’t help feeling a little refreshed and ready to face the second half of winter.