The first glimmers of “it gets easier”

Rachel Corbett: 00:00:02

Happy New Year. Oh, here we go again, eh? Buckle up, buckle up. It all begins.

The quietness of this early year will be over before we know it and we will be back into the thick of things. I'm really hanging on to this last little bit. I've got a few days off with work before I have to go back and get into the thicker things again.

And I'm just mildly terrified, to be honest, because this period of the year is the only time of the year where your inbox quietens slightly and people do not need anything from you and they are just doing their own thing, they're distracted. It's such a glorious time and it's almost finished. But anyway, we press on, we hang on, we move forward.

I have taken some good time, this break to kind of assess everything in my life, especially my finances. Oh my God. I have had a couple of questions come through where people wanted me to tell them how much it costs to have a baby on your own. I a lot.

Doing my tax for the last couple of years. I'm just like, holy crap. The amount of money that I spent on child care, it's actually so eye watering.

Anyway, anyway, this has been a real financial awakening. I think over this period.

I'm pretty good with money, but I have had to have my eye off the ball of so many things because I've obviously got a pretty intense full time job, I've got a child and then my business I'm, you know, trying to keep alive desperately because I just don't want to let it go and I love it and I don't want it to sort of fall in the bin. But when you don't have a huge amount of time, you don't have a huge amount of focus.

, let's change some things in: 2026

It's just one of those things when you start to take the time to sit down and look at things. That is such important time. But who effing has it? You gotta make the time. I have to have it. That's what my New Year's resolution is for. This year.

I'm gonna be across the finances every single week. I'm gonna be in the spreadsheet. I'm Gonna be in the bank accounts.

I'm gonna be looking over everything because this is gonna be the year of getting things back on track. Come on, public school. Come on, public school. Two years. Two years. We're almost there. We're almost there. Now.

I will say that this holiday period was not all just bank balance.

There was something that shifted pretty significantly for me over this break that I was a bit taken aback by and that I'm happy about, but also kind of sad about at the same time. And that was something really shifted between Olivia and I. She's certainly a lot older now. She's almost three.

So the difference between almost three and almost two. And when I think back to last Christmas break and I was just like tap dancing through that break, just going, oh, my God. Oh, my God.

And that's why I was really fearful of this Christmas break, to be honest. I was really nervous about daycare shutting. I had logged in time to get out of work before daycare shut down.

That went up in a puff of smoke when everything went crazy at the end of last year.

But I was just so convinced that if I do not have clear space and time before I go into this period of looking after her while daycare shut, I'm actually going to have a mental breakdown because I just was remembering how tough it was a year ago. And while, yes, it is still tap dancing, it was so different this year. It was so different.

Olivia has shifted into this new phase where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can see what people mean when they say it gets easier. I can see it coming. And the first glimmers of that happened over this period.

And I honestly feel a bit silly for dreading this time so much. I was like, what was I so scared about?

I mean, to be honest with everything, I found that the hardest thing about parenting is the anticipation of things that are never as bad as you think they are.

But the lead up, the fear that, oh, my gosh, this is going to be xyz, and then it's like, not actually as bad as you think or you realize you're a human being that can get through things. Yes, this is tough, but you're not dying, are you? So it's totally fine.

And you get out the other side and you feel like a dickhead forever worrying about it. That's what it's kind of felt like with this period because of that fear.

I did have about a wide open day, and I think I've done an episode on that concept that used to Scare the shit out of me. The idea of having a wide open day and nothing planned in my whole body would go into shutdown. I just could not bear the thought of it.

Which is why every day that we hang out together we have an activity in the morning and in the afternoon I would plan to catch up with somebody when what that was, was great because I love to parent with other people.

So nice when there's a second pair of hands or a third pair of hands around or your kid's got some other kid to play with and you're like, oh my God, I can have a moment to myself, just oh, help me. But what that is is actually exhausting because you are running from one thing to the next. I'm never just kind of chilling in my own space.

I'm always going to somebody else's house because I've got a pretty small apartment. So people don't often come here. So I'll often go to my best mate's place, hang out at her place. She's got a.

For kids we do that, do the bath and everything, which is lovely and great. But then I come home and you know, all of that toing and froing and not being in your own space is pretty exhausting.

And this holiday period, there were a couple of days, naturally everybody's away, people are doing things where there was nothing planned in. And in the lead up, was I scared? Yes, I was. Yes I was.

But when it actually came to those days I realized that, geez, it is nice not having anything to do now because she's not independently playing yet. I am hanging for those days. We have got a little glimpse of that with these water. Wow. Books that are.

These great books that are mess free like they basically got a picture and a.

And a little marker that you fill with water and you wet the white picture and it brings a picture out that's colorful underneath so it feels like they're drawing. And Olivia's obsessed with it. Obsessed with doing the drawing, then coming over and showing me what she drew.

So she will go and sit down by herself and do that and then she comes and shows me. And so that's the sort of smallest glimmer I've had of independent play. I'm still involved, but she's stepping away from me for a few minutes.

And ain't that a trait? I tell you, if we get up that a little bit more, I'll be really happy about it. But that was really nice.

But more so just actually having space and time to do things At a slower pace. Like we did a lot of sitting side by side and drawing.

I have a pool at the apartment, so we went swimming on the hot days and she absolutely loved it.

Like one afternoon we went down there, there was another kid down there with their parents and we just wasted an hour and 15 minutes down there having the time of our lives. I was like, this is amazing. Like, this is actually really enjoyable.

We come upstairs, Dinner takes a long time because as you know, she loves to have a little snack plate and loves to take her time ingesting all the bits and pieces. But then we can have a 45 minute bath we want because what else are we going to do?

And then that gives me a bit of time to roll around and do some bits and pieces.

I just felt like this was a totally new phase for us and it gave me an amazing shred of hope that this is now the path that we're kind of climbing out of and that we are going to be moving towards that time that I can start to see now where we could go on a road trip together or we can go out and kind of do all of these things that I can imagine now because my kid is becoming more of an independent kid and we're able to do stuff together that's like side by side. But I can see that she's starting to be able to kind of do things on her own. And that is so glorious and such a relief, Such a. I'm so tired.

I'm so tired and I just can't be clung to 24 hours a day anymore. And to the people who say to me, you will wish one day that you had that back, go away, go away. I am very grateful for her.

I am very grateful for the time that we spend together. But when I get to my best mate's place and she isn't clinging to me anymore, but she runs to my best mate's daughter and they go and play.

Immediately I'm like, oh, thank God. Whereas I speak to some parents and they're like, oh, now she runs away from me when we go to our friend's place. And I think, oh, that's so sad.

I don't think that. I'm never going to think that. I think, yay, you're feeling comfortable, you're feeling independent. Go away. Just go away for five minutes.

Just go away.

Not forever, not for a long time, but just for long enough for me to have a little bit of that thing I used to know and really enjoy, which is personal space. So that has Been really amazing for me. I think the negative of that has been taking her back to daycare this last couple of days.

Particularly on the first day she went back. I was really sad, didn't last long, got over it pretty quick because then I just had my day to myself.

But I definitely had a moment of thinking, I am going to miss you today again. I forgot about that in about five minutes now. When I think back, I'm like, I actually didn't miss her at all.

But I did really like to see her at the end of the day.

But when I dropped her off that first day, I thought, this feels much more like I'm leaving a friend, you know, someone that I really care deeply about and who I've enjoyed my time with rather than dropping off a kid that I'm just trying to keep alive, you know, it felt much more like we had spent quality time together and that was something I was like, oh, we're not going to do that again today. You're going to play here, which is important for you and it's important for me to go and get the stuff done that I need to get done.

But we're not going to have our whole day just hanging out together. And that was kind of sad. But as I said, I got over it pretty quick.

But it was a feeling that I recognized, noted am speaking about now and I thought that was really nice. But do I want to be back in the depths of another whole week of entertaining? Not really, no.

It was nice to go to Pilates yesterday before I go back to work. That was a real treat. But I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I'm not going to tell a single person about it who's got an older kid.

Because you know what they say, when you say you're excited about something, they're like, oh, will you just wait? You just wait now I'll shut up. Shut up. Let me have something. Would you just let me have this moment of joy that we actually had a nice time together.

al breakdown. I'm moving into: 2026

So I hope you are feeling similarly positive about this year. I feel like good things are on the way.

The last few years to me have felt good, but they felt quite water tready in a way, I guess because you're in that space of dealing with someone who's like a baby, then a one year old, then a two year old and it's very all consuming. And I know it's still going to be all consuming, but I think it's going to be just a different shift.

A lot of people tell me that kind of five is when it really shifts, but then I've had quite a few people tell me that, like, 3 and 4 are really different. And I certainly see my best mate's kid, who's a year older than Olivia, and I'm like, they're in a totally different patch of grass than I am.

Like their kids playing in her room by herself for an extended period of time.

My kid's not doing that unless I am sitting in that room doing something that I have no interest in doing, but pretending I do, because I am going to make sure that she knows that I want to be there. Even though in my head I'm like, I'd just really like to be sitting on the couch watching Real Housewives right now. But anyway, I'm not.

I'm here engaging and showing you how much I love you. Because I do. But I also love my space. If you have any time left before you go back to work, enjoy it. Really enjoy it.

If you are already back at work, my condolences. Let's just all hold hands and ride through this year together. Because once it starts the roller coaster, you can't get off it.

Thanks so much for listening and I will see you next week.