I was originally going to title this The Empty Pram, but thankfully it occurred to me that that might scare a few people into thinking something awful had happened and it's not that. This blog doesn't need a trigger warning or anything, past the usual it's my own personal account of parenting and I realise that some people may not want to read that for their own reasons. And I get that.
Last week my son went for his taster session at nursery where I stayed with him and I think I knew it was going to be a bit difficult, but not quite how difficult I would find it. My son's a happy kid and he's really smiley and sociable. I love it, most of the time, but it does make it hard when it feels as though he doesn't miss me. Before he was born people would tell me how they love boys because little boys are affectionate and warm and they love their mums. My son is affectionate and he is warm, but the times where he just wants his mum... I'm less convinced of that one and sometimes it makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Or doing everything wrong. He goes to nursery or to baby classes and he gets into playing with the other children or playing with the toys and he's off and away until he needs a nappy change, a bottle or until he falls and bumps his head. I know I should be really grateful for that, because it's a level of independence not all children his age have and it frees me up to do other things, but it comes with it's own difficulties.
Today was his first visit to nursery where I dropped him off, told them how his day has been going and then walked out. Thankfully it wasn't at the same time as drop off with the other parents so it's not like I had to experience other children crying as they were detached from their parent and my son not even noticing me leave, but it was still hard, and because of how close the nursery is to home I refuse to drive, even though there was a spot of rain, so I walked him there in his pram... which meant I had to push the pram home again without him in it, and that was the part that made me the most sad. In the past just under a year I've pushed him around in three different prams - don't judge me, it's a whole thing - (actually, it's four prams, but one of them was a borrow whilst at my mother in law's house because he needed a sleep and God knows he won't sleep anywhere but his pram or his cot and even the pram is questionable these day) and they all have their pitfalls and their good points, but nothing has felt emotionally harder than pushing the pram back to our house empty because when we're out with the pram, I talk to him. I point things out to him, I tell him what we're going to do, I ask him what he fancies from the shop if we're in the fruit and veggies aisle or the baby aisle, and it's not like I expect him to talk back to me yet, or tell me what he wants, but he smiles at me and giggles or plays and it's like an affirmation that I'm doing something right, because otherwise he couldn't be so happy, could he?
The route to his nursery and back is the same route we take walking the dog or going to the park, or going to the local shop or the hairdresser or a myriad of other places we go to in the pram. It's the same route we walk when we go and get the cars from the garage (because even though it's a long walk, it beats moving car seats around and I know walking is good for me and fresh air is good for him. On the way back I wanted to be chattering away to him about what we had to do - dropping off parcels, possibly going to the park for a go on the slide (nope, too wet, another day) or bemoan the fact that I still can't put my hands on the rain cover for the pram and how I should have brought one of the others to keep him dry, but my little buddy wasn't there for me to chat to, and when he comes home, he can't tell me about all the toys he's played with or the other children he's played with or anything, because he's not up to words yet, just the sweetest babbling that I know is him trying to form words and maybe trying to talk to me, or just tell me to please give him five minutes of peace because all I do is chatter to him or play him music.
Inevitably, nursery isn't a choice for us, as it's not for most people. Whilst both sets of our parents want to help out with looking after him and we both want to look at staggering our hours so he's spending less time in nursery than some children have to - partly because when we're working from home the only commute is getting him to nursery and back - there are still a lot of hours where we're working to be covered and it's not like we can choose to just give up our jobs for the next few years so we can be at home with him. Would we want to? Absolutely, but that doesn't make it possible, so I guess I just need to thank my lucky stars that he is such a happy and social kid, that he does well with the nursery practitioners and other children and that he's having a good time even when I'm not with him, even if it means I know I'm not there for moments like his first steps or his first words.
