Punctual, Proud and Peeing…

The Girl has started school. The school do a very gentle induction of half days for a whole week. Which is of course a total nightmare for childcare and for my child who is used to 10 hour days at nursery. It is somewhat painful all round.

Anyway, accepting this, Phil rose to the parenting challenge and took some annual leave. As did I, as I wasn’t missing the first day of school obligatory photo shoot either! But on the Friday I had a course to go on.  

So I swanned out of the house at 7.30am being a strong and independent woman, going to work and leaving Phil to have the Stay-at-home-dad experience. As we have long established, time keeping is not Phils’ strongest point so I left him fully briefed and and crossed my fingers. 

But I needn’t have worried. Phil is a new age independent man. He’d got this. And he really did. He dropped the girl off. He fed The Boy, he returned at lunch time to collect The Girl. He told me with great delight that he spoke to lots of the mums at the school gates, he tells me he was a proud dad and he didn’t stick out like the only dad at the gate, he did the school run and enjoyed it. In fact he was so on time that he managed to collect The Boy’s prescription milk (because cows milk makes his insides bleed) from the pharmacy before he went to the school. 

The Boy’s milk supply comes as 7 tins of formula. Which they kindly put in a box to make it easy to carry. 

So Phil went to the school gates and mingled like a pro with a huge, bright purple, clearly labelled, Tena lady incontinece pads box under his arm. 

Now when I realise that this has happened I have mixed emotions. 

Firstly I’m mortified that every parent at the school gates is going to think that I have incontinence issues. I’ve had two children, including a 9lb 1 chunk of a boy so it’s not entirely unreasonable that people would think this. But I actually don’t. I’m lucky enough to have a husband who is a urologist and therefore kindly offered frequent reminders to do my pelvic floor exercises. Which to date have proved very effective in maintaining my ability to pee on demand. 

But then again. Why should I be so distressed that people are thinking my husband is collecting my incontinence pads? I mean what a guy to do that?! 

And, so what if I do need incontinence pads? What’s the big deal? It’s a common problem, why should I be embarrassed? Why shouldn’t we say it loud and proud “I carried 2 children and popped them out of my fanny. My body is amazing. So let’s cut it some slack and forgive it for being a bit leaky.”

Maybe Phil proudly chatting away with the Tena Lady under his arm will make someone else think. Maybe it will normalise this. Maybe it will encourage someone else to seek help. Maybe us ladies should stick together and breakdown the stigma. Maybe we can help each other out. 

And maybe we should all just do our pelvic floor exercises now. 

Right now!!! 

But maybe, just maybe, nobody noticed the Tena Lady box after all….

Author: motherinthehouse

I am Helen, although more commonly known as “Mum" or "Doc". I have a couple of other roles along side of this. - I’m a a wife, to another junior doctor (yawn) - who specialises in willies and wee. - A daughter to a Yorkshire man and a Scottish lady, an undeniably great combo resulting an ability to be super frugal drunk. - A sister to two older brothers therefore the victim of years of 'character building' experiences. - A northerner who travelled down to the midlands for uni and never quite made it back. Yet. - A friend, to some, for over 25 years, and still can’t shake them off; at this stage they know too much. - An aunty to two boisterous nephews residing stateside, and a local niece. - A daughter- and sister-in-law; having lacked sisters growing up I'm now lucky enough to have acquired 4. - A neighbour to The Deputy, The General and their wives, amongst other retirees. - A slimmer and a swimmer, albeit neither particularly successfully just now. - A gardener, chef, cleaner, washing machine operator, carrier bag collector, and now after much persuasion (borderline bullying) and a 30 quid investment, a keen blogger! View all posts by motherinthehouse