mothers on the verge

Children have a serious design fault. To a child, it seems quite reasonable to shout even simple requests at the top of their voices. To them, a whisper is unthinkable. Life is carried out cranked up to the highest volume and at top speed. It exhausts me just to look at them and as for listening, well, it's no wonder that my hearing is no longer as acute as it used to be. There's a lot of talk about the dangers of youngsters hanging out in nightclubs and dancing too close to the speakers, and the danger this poses to their hearing. But what about parents? Who ever thinks about us? After the daily torment of demands for juice bellowed straight into my ear, it's a surprise my ears drums haven't perforated and that I still manage to cling on to the small amount of cognitive function remaining. After the 13th tantrum of the day my ears continue to ring long into the night, a fitting accompaniment to the jangling of my nerves. And these are just the high points to endless da...

to the (not so) Small(er) One

Had a shitty week this week. It started with a letter arriving in the post. A normal, white envelope, like, so what? But this was no ordinary envelope, for it contained the key to freedom, the end of scrimping and saving to pay expensive private daycare fees, the answer to having to take two children to different schools at different ends of the borough every day of the week, a means for the girls to spend more time together - oh yes, this letter had been eagerly awaited for a while. This oh-so-important letter was from Firstborn's school in response to our application to get the Small(er) One into the nursery class at the same esteemed (and free state school) establishment. We were reasonably confident about it because we fulfil the top three criteria to get in - practicing Catholics in the parish, live in the area, and last but not least, Firstborn is already there and they have a sibling priority policy. BUT THE SMALL(ER) ONE WAS REJECTED! Yes, rejected, the utter tossing @*?$!!...

In a rare moment of madness, I recently persuaded Alpha to come to a fund-raiser quiz night Firstborn's school; you know, do your bit for the school, meet other parents, watch the teachers get mildly pissed out of school hours, good clean fun etc. Going to school on a Saturday night is always going to be slightly odd, seeing other parents who you usually only see for a matter of minutes at the school gate for an entire evening is very strange, and drinking wine in a hall which we are usually only allowed to enter for parental assemblies and ballet recitals seems rather deviant (and not in a good way.) We had been there for around half-an-hour when the babysitter called to say that our building was in the midst of a black-out, but all was fine and she would call back when the lights came back on. OK, so we drank a glass of wine, chatted to other parents on our table, and decided on a team name. The point at which I knew the night was not destined to go well was when Alpha insisted ...

Do you ever wake up feeling totally, utterly angry? And for no good reason? Thankfully for me this state of being is fairly rare. I'm a grumpy a lot of the time, yes, and often cross. But not usually quite as enraged as I have been feeling recently. Maybe it's working 50/60-hour weeks for the past month while still trying to manage the school or nursery run and some semblance of a home life (which means I get home on time but then have to work remotely until midnight). Maybe it's the fact that every weekend for the past month there have been a round of kids parties, family and friends to see, house stuff to do, mountains of ironing, children to entertain, husbands to soothe... and however hard I try, all I really want to do is stay in bed for the entire 48-hours, which means I am in slow motion and make nobody happy due to my exhausted dullness. Maybe it's the fact that I am mad at myself, because working this hard while trying to keep a house and be a mother and a wife...