You Can’t Sit Down: Don’t even think you can sit down when you have a pair of toddlers who are in constant need of attention and feeding and cleaning and changing and always under threat of hurting themselves or worse. Sometimes I find myself bum shuffling around to meet the demands of my children; or if I’m having a ‘good’ day I will somehow remain vertical, but with a lot of OUCH!
You Can’t Be Ill: Sorry MS, you’ll just have to sod off… uh, did you hear me?… No??…. Oh, bugger.
You Can’t Sleep: In all actual truthful honesty 6am is a blissful lie-in now we have kiddie-winks. Getting up several times during the night aside, my children typically rise between 4.30-5.30, sometimes earlier, sometimes much much earlier (I think the earliest that I have had to get up was 1am), but almost never later. Suffer with chronic fatigue? Hahahahahahahaha, good luck!
But You Can: Have snuggly time when the little ‘uns have worn themselves out and have the best kisses and cuddles and tickle-time and experience the most powerful kind of love ever to exist. Having kids forces you to keep going, you have no choice but to get on with things as best as you can and as positively as you can because your children need you. Being a parent is tiring for anyone; being a parent with MS is tiring and then some; but being a parent full-stop is the most amazing thing ever.
First published 29 September 2016
The Wibbly Dinosaur 