The Own Goal ✔️

Part 83

April 2022
Baby tracker 👶
7 weeks old 🗓️

Thud, thud...thud...........
Thud.....
Thud, thud..........
........
.......
Thud

I'm in the kitchen sorting Mia's lunchbox out and I swear to god, if he kicks that ball against the wall like that again I'm going to kick his fucking head!

Thud

"JACK! SERIOUSLY!" I scream from the kitchen door, well aware I sound like a bloody fish wife screeching at market.

Thud
"WOT?"

"Where's Mia? I thought you were playing with her?"

"I was, she didn't want to play no more, she's on the trampoline"

Calm down. Count to ten I tell myself.
"Pretty sure when she asked you to play with her she meant the trampoline though not fucking football"

He kicks the ball away and I watch his shoulders slump.
I've done it again.
Constantly sniping at him when there's no need, when he's done nothing really to deserve it.
It's hormones. I know it is, but I can never stop the words falling out of my mouth, even when I know my tongue is venomous.

"Sorr - "

" - no don't " I bring my hands to head, push my hair back, when was the last time I even washed my hair?
"You don't need to say sorry, it's me I'm tired"

"We're both tired bab"
He takes a very cautious few steps closer to me "she told me to get off the trampoline, she told me I'm too big for it!" His eyes widen and sparkle
"I can't deal with her havin' ya sass!"

I laugh, not fully, not heartedly, but it's genuine. It's a 12ft trampoline. It's set into the ground, dug out below it so there's no danger of her falling off of it, but off course she thinks her daddy's too big to go on it.

"An' speakin' of sass has she called ya jus' mom instead of mommy yet? She said get off dad, ya too big, she ain't old enough to say dad instead of daddy"
I smile, because he looks devasted, the soft oaf.

"Yeah, she's called me mum instead mummy a couple of times, she gets it from preschool maybe?"

She actually calls me mam and mammy or mama. Poor thing her accents fucked, there's me with my southern non discript accent, Jack and all his family with their thick Brum accents and we're bringing her up in Manchester.
Not to mention how she mixes with lots of bilingual children with various accents at nursery, and socially with Jack's teammates.

"I'm sorry, I am just tired, and I know you are too so it's no excuse - "

"Stop it, ya've had a rough time ya not recovered yet, I'm sorry I can't do more"

He does enough.
The only thing he doesn't do is help at night unless I ask him, and if I do ask him he helps immediately never with a complaint, but he's already trained himself to sleep through the night cries and night feeds when I don't purposefully wake him.
Pep apparently likes to insist his players shouldn't be sharing rooms with newborns.
Especially after a season when they didn't win any silverware.
Especially Jacks first season and they didn't win any silverware.
It's not Jack's fault, no one within the team even thinks it's anything to do with him, they just had a stinker of a season.
Jack obviously thinks it's something to do with him.
He's got his sparkle back this season though.
Nearing the last few weeks of the season now and they are still in the FA cup, the champions league and top of the premier league table.
Jack was never going to sleep separate from us, and he told Pep as much. So the compromise which was my suggestion, is he sleeps in the spare room the night before games when he's home and he doesn't get up in the night unless I'm in desperate need of help to deal with a poonami or some similar disaster.
Actually, he rarely even slept in the spare room.
After doing it twice he complained he just felt lonely and bought a double bed for Mia, so he's actually sharing with her when he isn't with me.