I talk to my Dog…Does that make me crazy?

I don’t know about anyone else but I was surprised to find that following my pregnancies my memory seemed to fade. I have become reliant on daily lists to get me through each day.

Making lists was not a new concept, it was a tool that I regularly used throughout my career, to enable me to keep a handle on the various cases that I was assisting fee earners with, but I had never before needed to make lists to keep track of what I need to do at home before.

Now I make a list of household tasks, such as washing, ironing, shopping, vacuuming and doing the dishes among other things. In addition to developing a love of a list I am reliant on a strict timetable. If the timetable is disrupted I am completely thrown. My anxiety and stress levels go through the roof. This, in turn, has a knock on effect on the children.

There have been many days once the children have settled for the night that I have spent the evening crying. It is good to cry, in my experience tears can have a calming effect, almost like a release for my stress. Once I have finished and I feel like my soul has been cleansed, I analyse what triggered this reaction and nine times out of ten it is something so small and insignificant that you can’t even remember it.

The majority of my tears have been shed following a situation with one of the children where I feel I should have handled it differently. Whether that is in connection with a consequence that I have set out for a continuing behaviour, which in hindsight could be seen as extreme, given the circumstances, or because my child has unleashed the frustrations on me and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

As I have previously said, my husband lodges away with his work which means I am alone for a vast majority of the time. There is a difference between being alone and feeling lonely. I was an only child growing up so I am generally comfortable with my own company, however, if it has been a trying day I can start to feel lonely. Normally, the sense of loneliness triggers the tears.

There are only so many times that you can have a one way conversation with the dog about the day. There comes a point where even the dog is looking at you like a crazy person. Even more so when you start filling the silence with your impression of what you think he might sound like if he could talk.

The conversation generally goes like this:-

Me: “How was your day puppy? What have you been up to?

Dog: “I haven’t done much, sleeping mostly, had some time in the garden, kept an eye out for delivery men, not that I am bothered by them so nothing exciting”

Me: “Its been a busy day today puppy, had loads to do, you know anyway i told you this morning, I have not achieved much though but at least the children are asleep”

Dog: “Are you going to feed me now? Your next to the cupboard with the food in, it won’t take much effort, I’m hungry…”

Me: “I saw so and so and talked to whatshername. Might try and do smoe work in a minute. What do you reckon? Shall I do some work or shall we just watch Netflix?”

Dog: “What is she yabbering on about now…I’m hungry…just get my dinner and shut up so I can get back to my bed woman…”

Me: “Netflix I think, yeah let’s do that”

Dog: “Where is she going now? Why is she sitting down, she hasn’t fed me has she? Nope, the bowl is still empty, what is she playing at…get back here!! Stop making noise and just FEED ME!!”

So yeah, that is my typical evening conversation. Barmy I know but surprisingly it helps to decompress on a bad day. The dog generally is sat looking at me in silence probably thinking “I do not sound like that at all, you are not funny woman, FEED ME!” I am so relieved that he can’t talk, I mean the stories he could tell you do not bear thinking about.

Anyway, back to my list making, it is ridiculous how much I am dependant on my lists. Shopping lists, packing lists, bills list to make sure everything is paid, school lists for consent forms etc (not so much in the current climate), lists of phone calls to make, most things in my life will have a list attached.

I am trying to wean myself off the lists but I think this is going to be a slow process. Baby brain is definitely a thing, and judging by my experience so far, it isn’t limited to pregnancy and the new born fog that follows. Is this going to be me for the remainder of my life? I hope not but time will tell.

Maybe as the children gain more independence my obsession with lists will ease as, in theory, there will be less brain power required to keep them alive…who knows.

I have noticed that as the children get older the lists are now more a weekly to do list rather than a daily with the housework. So I am taking that as a glimmer of hope that in the future I will be able to function and fill my brain with new knowledge, in the meantime I will just keep my fingers crossed that it will retain new information for more than a few hours at a time.

Routine is a whole separate beast. It is getting easier to have more flexibility as time passes. I am not quite so strict with regards to bed times for example, but I do try and keep as close to the routine as I can. If it is too much later then I start to struggle. The kids need their sleep obviously but when they were younger, the evenings was “my time”. Now that they are growing up I, selfishly, struggle with losing half an hour of this time. Inevitably, it is going to happen but I would like to delay it for as long as I possibly can.

The other reason that I want to delay the extension of the day is due to food. So, at the moment, bedtime stories end at around 8pm. During the week I tend to prepare myself some food once bedtime is done. We eat together as a family on the weekends, don’t panic, we are not complete heathens but during the week I eat later than the children. Once bedtime is later, I will have less time to eat myself and less time to eat sweets and snacks behind their backs.

If they find my stash of hidden goodies I will be completely scuppered. The dog is already judgemental of this, he knows where it is and would absolutely rat me out if he could talk…thankfully the children do not have the same telepathic bond with him that I clearly have.

Thinking about it now, maybe that would be a good thing. All this time I have been blaming pregnancy for my pouch that has replaced my abdomen. Maybe all I need to do is to stop eating the junk food and do more exercise…sounds exhausting…maybe I should add that to my to do list for this week.

Me: “What do you think puppy?”

Dog: “Do it tomorrow…Now FEED ME!”