Sigh…It’s Monday again.

The fleeting time we had over the weekend with the hairy husband is over and back to the grind it is for all of us.

Again. Double sigh. 

Before I became a parent, I never realised what the endless days of taking care of a one tiny person who couldn’t speak English would really be like. And I never realised realised that every day would be made up of a never-ending cycle of shifts. For those of you who are old enough (like me) to get this, I can best describe it in that I was Bill Murray (but happier), and my baby was The Groundhog, from the movie Groundhog Day.

Yup. Each day for me and my four and a half month old baby is made up of 4 distinct shifts. Shift one : 7:00-8:30am. Shift two : 11-12:30pm. Shift three: 3-4:30pm. And Shift four is from 5(ish)-6:30pm. In between these shifts? He sleeps. #Legend.

Now not ALL shifts go according to schedule, however every shift is Exactly. The. Freaking. Same. And we live them over and over and over.

They go a little something like this.

I wake my baby up with unbridled enthusiasm. “Good morning” I sing/screech as I waltz into his room to wake him up (if he is not already awake mind you). His big half-blue-half-brown and ever-changing eyes follow me around the room beaming with happiness as I try my very best to make him smile and laugh.

I strip him completely naked, blowing kisses on his belly to make him giggle and go all wriggly with happiness, then he plays for half an hour on his tummy until he realises that he is actually hungry and he tells me in no uncertain terms that he wants his bottle. Well, he yells something nonsensical at me for am minute or two until I get the gist of what he wants, and what he wants is to eat. Fair enough really. I guess the boy is grumpy with hungry. #LikeHisMumma

So, we spend the rest of the “shift” feeding together, reading books together, playing on his playmat, wiping spew or poo off of things, and then singing songs before he yawns, rubs his eyes and is whisked back to bed again. #GawdBedTimesAreTheActualBest

We are pretty strict with our routine and making sure the boy goes to bed when he is supposed to go to bed, and waking him up when he is “supposed” to wake up. And this is because when we were in hospital, I had such trouble with breast feeding which caused my mini man to alllllllmost lose too much weight. The paediatrician who saw us told us to make sure that we fed him on a schedule – every 3 hours during the day and every 4 at night to ensure that he started putting on weight. They had been worried, and so was I.

And once we switched to bottle feeding on that same schedule, he thrived so beautifully that it made sense for us to continue.

Read about my experience with breastfeeding here. 

Those first few months after we got home from the hospital flew by in a blur. At the start it was so exciting and fun as we worked together to learn how to entertain this new addition to our family in those shifts that I talked about. Everything was new. Everything was fresh. And we all loved having that routine to guide us with what to do and when to do it. #WeHadNoIdeaWhatWeWereDoingSoAppreciatedTheHelp

However as the weeks went by the feeling of monotony started to creep in.

Wake, eat, play, sing, read, sleep, repeat, repeat, repeat, REPEAT! It was still enjoyable… but it got kind of boring doing the same thing all of the time. Singing the same songs – the wheels on the bus go round and round… and round and round and round. My voice was starting to go croaky from singing the same old nursery rhymes over and over, and I could feel my brain begin to rust from underuse.

I started to do little things just to spice things up.

Some days I went wild and we sat in the KITCHEN instead of the loungeroom. Woah, watch out. And other days we went , we went REALLY crazy and played in the little mans bedroom for an hour or so instead of the kitchen. Shut the actual front door.

And then other days, we ACTUALLY WENT OUTSIDE BECAUSE THE ACTUAL SUN CAME OUT. Holy Guacamole. I mean, we may have had to sit amongst some dog poo on the concrete because I prioritised the jobs I needed to do whilst the boy was sleeping the and picking up dog poo was not even remotely ever on the list. #SuckedInThatsDaddysDomain

But we did try and mix it up like that. Because staring at the same four walls for weeks, months on end became a bit rough after a while.

And because (to be completely honest), one of the toughest things so far about parenthood is the relentless monotony of it all. It’s one job that never will end and that you never get a break from, but you know what?

It’s ok coz it’s all kinda worth it. You do get used to it. You find things to ease the monotony (hello Netflix), and regardless of the boredom, you will find yourself falling more in love with your sweet baby every day as they grow older and interact more with you.

Girl, you just gotta do what you gotta do to get through. Because no-one ever said it would be easy, and I guess looking back , no-one ever said parenting would be non-stop fun either.

Wish they did. Wish it was.

So find an outlet however you can, to keep yourself from going bat-shit crazy. My outlet was, and still is my blog.

And you, my lucky readers, wouldn’t know it, but you have helped me find my place in of this craziness of life over and over. Amongst the dirty nappies, the spewy bibs, the dribbled Farax and the crocodile tears I am enjoying our conversations. Sometimes they are one-sided. Sometimes they have filled with such relatable advise from you that I feel better and lighter every day.

Thank you for being part of my life. And thank you for letting me tell you all about my family.

I am so grateful to have you, and I hope you stick around xx

Does this resonate with you? Do you feel like those early days of parenthood are made up of one shift after the next which is exactly like the one before it? Well, leave me a comment below and tell me all about it xx