I am writing this the day after, The Day After. You know The Day After? Of course you do. We all know THE DAY AFTER. The one where you went out last night and had THE BEST time and now you want to chop your head off and pour bulk panadol syrup down your open neck. One of those wake-me-up-when-it’s-over-I-don’t-think-this-could-possibly-just-be-a-hangover-I-must-have-the-bubonic-plague kind of days.

Yesterday was my The Day After. And it got me good.

As most of you would know, we attended our local footy club’s annual ball on Saturday night. As most of you would also know, we have two little boys under 2.5 years. As most of you would know THIS. IS. NOT. A. GOOD. COMBINATION.

Holy Mary Mother of Sweet Baby Jesus it was a long day.

When your 6-month-old wakes ONE HOUR after you’ve strewn your ball gown in a crumpled heap and collapsed into bed, well that doth not a good sleep make. When your toddler wakes you with this face at 6am:

That also doth not a good sleep make.

Yes my friends, the days of the lazy, watch movies and drink Gatorade hangovers have gone. They are officially over. And nothing makes you realise your responsibilities more than caring for your offspring whilst holding your 10 tonne head up and rubbing your sand-filled eyes.

When you are hungover with little kids, the day that would usually go for about 12 sleepy hours, tends to go for roughly 734 hours. It therefore becomes paramount that you break those long hours up into units of time. Watching The Wiggles, for example, takes up one unit (about 45 minutes). Nursery Rhymes on the laptop can go for another unit. Me lying on the couch peeling stickers off the sticker book so the toddler can stick them to the carpet, my face, his tongue – also one unit. Providing semi-nutritious snacks by method of drip feeding (ie handing out one sultana at a time) counts for one unit.

Essential domestic duties pitch partner against partner. Husband against wife.

Nappy change needed? I’ll paper, scissors, rock you for it.

Greasy takeaway need picking up? I changed the nappy, you’re doing it.

Meal need preparing? I’ll do this one if you do the next one.

You will also go to great lengths to search out respite. Without mentioning any names, a good friend of mine has been known to casually walk past his parent’s house with toddler in pusher and just happen to drop in with his pasty face and husky voice. He then magically appears back at home sans toddler. And I can’t say I’m not appreciative of his survivor-style tactics, we honest to goodness would not have made it through the day without them.

But here we are, the day after The Day After, and shit I’m thankful we did it! What was one small step for the social regulars, was one giant leap for the social isolates like myself and mothers everywhere. Because when you spend all of your days caring for babies and negotiating with terrorists (or toddlers, however you like to pronounce it) you can lose a bit of your identity. More than a little bit actually. And yes I wouldn’t change it for the world, I shouldn’t even need to say that, but it’s still hard to swallow sometimes. I promise I’m not being ungrateful, I adore being a mum, I’m just being honest.

I used to be able to talk about work, education, netball, politics, current affairs, great TV shows, world events. Now I literally talk about bowel movements, teething and lack of sleep. It can be hard to hold an engaging conversation with someone when you literally have nothing else to talk about. You can see the glazed look in their eyes as soon as the word baby is mentioned, and I absolutely do not blame them, other people’s kids really aren’t that interesting. I actually had to ask the pharmacy assistant what month we were in when I dated a script today, not what day, what MONTH. Holy heck girl, get out more!

So I did get out, and it was just as all of you beautiful, supportive, encouraging friends said it would be. It was bloody wonderful. I laughed, I over-shared, I gossiped, I danced, I drank and I was just downright merry.

And now I return to my beautiful, busy boys with a renewed sense of self.

Yes we are mothers (and fathers), and yes our children are absolutely everything, everything, everything to us…but we are also everything, everything, everything to them so we’ve gotta look after their parents too!

Just not too often, lawdy I couldn’t take The Day After again anytime soon.

Eliza xx