Tuesday 7 December 2010

Being a Working Mum

Today I found the harsh realities of being a full time working mum quite difficult to take and became quite stressed about it.

I work about an hours drive away from home, so, an hours drive away from my children's school. Add snow, ice and freezing fog to the "normal" drive to and from work and you can imagine it's a bit of a trek.

Today whilst at work I received a phone call from my son's school, saying, "Nothing to worry about but son has stabbed himself in the neck with some pencils and he's a little upset"

What happened it seemed, is that son was walking in the classroom with a pencil pot and he didn't see one of the other kids shuffling under a desk after dropping something and tripped over him. Said pencil pot and son went for a tumble and as he fell to the deck, the pencils stuck themselves in the front of his throat causing bleeding and lots of tears.

"I'm coming to get him" I said. Only I have an hours drive...

This then turns into one stressed out mum, trying to drive in the above conditions attempting to get to a crying child after having pencils rammed into his neck.

I struggled to care about the conditions on the road, only concerned with getting to my son and wrapping my arms around him. I had to remind myself as I drove as fast as the conditions would let me, that I wouldn't be able to soothe him if I was dead in the road, so I tried to hurry and keep safe. The longest hours drive from work I've had so far.

He's fine. He was sat with staff eating his lunch when I got to school. His neck has three small cuts covered by drying blood where the pencils have actually punctured his skin. I've given him ibuprofen for the pain and he's now happily watching Phineas and Ferb as I type and is perfectly ok.

I have to go out to work. I think many families now have two working parents, but today was hard. It wasn't serious, but it was stressful. I think we both deserve some pampering today.

6 comments:

  1. I know exactly how he feels!

    I can remember being 6 years old, attending my local primary school, and getting my finger trapped in a door as somebody closed it. My fingernail eventually dropped off (yuk!), although I can clearly remember my mum coming to pick me up that afternoon.

    Still to this day - usually during family events when she's out to embarrass me - she reminds me of what she saw once she arrived. Little Jonathan, sat in an empty classroom, with his finger raised aloft in the air, looking incredibly sorry for himself. The part she always emphasises (with pride, I might add) is that I didn't cry once, her brave little soldier.

    Strange the things we remember isn't it. I'm sure your little boy will recover just as I did, and I'm sure you will learn to cope better in these difficult and stressful situations, just as my own mother did.

    For the moment, treat him to some junk food and cuddle up on the sofa. He'll be moving out and getting married before you know it!

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  2. Awww, the poor little fella, and YOU. Hope you have a nice stress free evening ahead :) Jen

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  3. Jonathan- you're banned from the blog! Growing up, leaving home and getting married!! Huumph! He's staying my little boy! :)

    Thanks for sharing though.

    Jen- thanks. We had a relaxing afternoon snuggled on the settee. He's doing ok but complained when I put him to bed that it hurt when he lay down so I've propped him up with extra pillows :)

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  5. My God! That was an awful experience. We don't realise how lucky we are living, working and studying only five minutes from each other here. Although, with the way things are going that could be set to change.

    Hope your little boy is ok now.

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  6. He's ok now thanks Susan. He looks like a three toothed vampire has been at him but he's doing well. Where it is, it could have been really serious which does make me worry about the distance I work but if it was I'm hopeful the school would have called for medical help anyway. Tough choices we have to make nowadays as working parents.

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