When I was in my previous
relationship, I imagined myself as having my own children and raising them to
be insufferable know-it-alls like me. I
loved the idea of planning birthday parties and nursery decor to my own
aesthetic and impressing it on them. I
dreaded the thought of a Gemini baby, because you know...Geminis.
And that was the way I believed my
relationship was heading. My ex had
literally proposed to me instead of asking me out like a normal person, so
getting married and having kids was always a topic of conversation for us.
Don’t
judge me. I know how absolutely
ridiculous that sounds.
Fast forward 5 years later, 1 year on
from my break up, and those dreams are the furthest things from my mind. My partner is 51 with two teenage daughters,
19 and 16, and I am now an overnight mom.
No nappies or kissing booboos or teaching them to tie shoelaces. My life is now balancing the vibe in a house
with two emotional teenagers and threatening to phone the mothers of boys who
harass them.
My life has turned into having to be
an adult for a change: I can’t lose my shit every time the girls leave their
dishes in the lounge or use all the towels in the house. I’m no longer the independent, selfish person
I once was. I have a whole family unit
to consider when making decisions.
What’s strangest of all to me is that
the longer I spend with these girls, the less I think about my dream of having
my own baby. Mark and I have been
together now for over a year and I have developed such an incredible bond with
Jenna and Jamie that having a child of my own seems redundant. If parenting is all about loving another
small human with everything you have, then I’m already there.
I’m not trying to fill the mother role
in our home because the girls already have a great Mom. I just get to be the “Responsible Adult” in
the home who kind of looks like she fits in that role, which I’m ok with except
when I don’t want to be the Responsible Adult, in which case I usually just
descend into a fit of baby talk and make very poor financial decisions.
Basically, having Jenna and Jamie
means I get all the perks of parenting with the ability to tap out when shit
gets real (like teenage bitch fits – ain’t nobody got time for that). I don’t have to teach them how to use the
toilet, only how to screw a bleeping lid back on to the toothpaste tube. I don’t have to teach them how to use a
spoon, only how to pick their dishes up and put them in the sink.
Sometimes you may not get to live your
dream, but instead you get to live a new dream that’s even better than the
first.
That’s how I became an
#OvernightMom.
Light and love ♡♡♡