Offloading the mental load

I snapped at my husband last night.

He didn’t do anything wrong. I was just tired.

Not just physically tired. That also goes without saying - especially given that our youngest darling was up at 5.30am singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star! 

I’m mentally tired. 

I tried to explain the feeling to him – like when he’s been to one of those conference things he sometimes goes to and comes back feeling totally frazzled.

That’s how I feel, but all the time. And not just about work stuff, but home stuff too. 

There’s so much information that I’m holding in my head, sometimes it feels like my brain is going to explode. 

He often asks me how he can help, but the honest answer is…I don’t know. 

I’m a control freak

Of course he could help by packing the school bags each evening and planning our meals for the week.  

But, in all honesty, I don’t think it would help, because I’d worry something would get missed or a ball would get dropped.

I could run him through the schedule for the week, but I’d still need to remember it in case he forgot, because I’m a control freak.

Sometimes I think, what’s the worst that could happen?

Hypothetically speaking, if I forgot to send our eldest to school with her swimming bag on Tuesday:

Would the world end? Of course not.

Would anyone get in trouble? I doubt it.

Would I feel as though I’d failed in my duties as a parent? Absolutely.

It’s not just the swimming bag, it’s everything.

Remembering she has forest school on a Monday, swimming on a Tuesday and drama on a Thursday, while also trying to meet my own work deadlines, keep the house in order and remembering to pick up our littlest from nursery.

It’s remembering to RSVP to the party invite and buy the gift. It’s not forgetting to buy more Wotsits because there’ll be hell to pay if I turn up at the school gates without a snack!

It’s not that I don’t think my husband could do it. I’m sure he could. But there’s so much to offload it just feels easier to do it myself. 

I told you I’m a control freak!

The default parent

He tells me not to stress about this stuff, and I know he’s right. But it’s easier said than done.

There’s always a massive to-do list in my head that never seems to get any shorter. And that’s before I’ve even thought about my own work. 

I don’t seem to ever be able to switch off. There’s always something that needs doing. 

I’m the default parent. It's my own fault, I signed up to it. I registered for the nursery app and the school meals booking system. I’m the one who gets the emails about non-school uniform day and the call from nursery when our little one has a temperature. 

I just don’t think I realised what I was signing up to when I became the default parent. 

Today I had eight emails from school. EIGHT. 

I didn’t even get eight work emails today. Good job too, because I spent most of the day doing school admin. 

And don’t even get me started on the class WhatsApp group! 

It all kicked off this afternoon because Rebecca lost her AirUp bottle and her mum pretty much accused Bethan of taking it, which obviously didn’t go down well with Bethan’s mum. 

Sure, I could mute the chat. Sometimes I do. But what if I missed something important? I think that’s the control freak in me kicking in again.

Thinking out loud

Why am I telling you all this? 

Why have I written a whole blog about the stuff that goes on in my head?

Because it’s a lot. And sometimes it’s good to offload the mental load. I bet there’ll be other people who can relate to a lot of it too.

If my husband reads this, hopefully it’ll help him understand what’s going on in my head, and why sometimes it all gets a bit much. 

Being a parent is hard, but I know I’m incredibly lucky that I have someone to share it with. I honestly don’t know how I’d cope without him.

We’re in it together. We’re a team and we make a great partnership - like Bandit and Chilli (just without the amazing house).

Can you relate? Get in touch and offload.