14/1/19

Dear Diary,

6:15 Alarm goes off. Drag myself downstairs. It can’t only be Monday. Put kettle on. It can’t only be the second week of term. Make cup of tea. Empty dishwasher. Hear footsteps on stairs. Internally pray the person breaking my solitude doesn’t speak to me. Or even worse, ask me a question. Please let them have the respect to wait until I’ve drunk caffeine. Amen.

6:40 Child 5 opens door on his own toes. Comforting Mum mode switched on.

7:00 Husband speed walks to the shop to get change for the bus. Two lots of £1:10 needed four times per day. On no account will the bus driver let Child 1 pay with a £2 and 20p for herself and Child 2. We have used all the coppers and money from the kids money boxes, so times are desperate.

7:20 Remind Child 1 who has lost her dinner card but isn’t intending to make lunch for school that ‘food is more important than foundation’. When you are 12, anyway. At 37 with eye bags this impressive those priorities are reversed.

7:30 First two children leave. Husband leaves. I wrestle two smallest offspring into their clothes. I am sweaty and worn out when finished. Child 3 plays basketball in the hall and Child 4 makes strong objections about going to school.

8:25 At the school bus stop. Child 5 declares he’s done a wee, as the trickle seeps out of his trouser leg and down the hill towards the unsuspecting waiting parents.

9:15 Back home, child in clean set of clothes. Attempt computer type jobs. Child 6 asks for lunch.

9:30 I am feeling motivated despite the ‘wee’ (no pun intended) incident. Months ago I decided to paint a blue wall in the lounge. I tried a tester which the kids all thought was black, so I concluded maybe that was too dark. So those two test patches have been on the walls ever since, all through Christmas, as a little pointer to my unfinished moment of creativity. Today is the day. I paint over the patches with the second tester pot. I hate it.

10:15 In B&Q (not the fire station, despite Child 5’s hopes and dreams) to buy paint. Child 5 announces he needs a wee. Make the long walk with the pushchair from the paint aisle to the secret unlabelled door on the back wall that hides a customer toilet.

10:25 Waiting for assistant to mix a whole tin of paint that I may or may not like when it’s on the wall. Child 5 announces he’s done a poo. It’s true. Wait for paint, head back to the hidden toilet. Didn’t bring bag with change of clothes and wet wipes, so he’s cleaned with wet toilet paper and is going commando. Pay for paint.

10:30 Arrive back at car. Lifting Child 6 into car seat when he announces ‘shoe gone’ in his best speech. It’s true. He has one lonely Converse on his left foot. Given that we’ve already lost his other pair of shoes, I load him back in the pushchair, get Child 5 back out, and we make the long walk back into the shop, down all the aisles we’ve been in, all the way to the very back, through two doors into that same toilet, and there is the offending shoe. We retrieve it, and go back to the car.

10:45 Undeterred by the morning so far, I decide we’ll go and get the boys haircut on the way home. Foolishly tell them the plan. Child 5 likes to say ‘what?’ on repeat, no matter how many times you rephrase what you said, or how loud you say it, he just carries on. ‘What?’ ‘Haircut.’ ‘What?’ ‘We’re going to get your hair cut.’ ‘What?’ ‘We’re going to the hairdressers to see if they will cut your hair.’ ‘What?’ Along with that, Child 6 is in parrot mode, learning new words every 5 minutes. ‘Haircut’, haircut, what, what, what.’
Is it too early for wine? 

11:00 Hairdresser is closed on Monday. Drive to second hairdresser.

11:05 Both boys have fallen asleep. I don’t want them asleep now, or else there’ll be no moment of peace to paint the wall when Child 5 is in playgroup. Wake them up and go into second hairdresser. They can’t do it today. Book appointment for tomorrow. Get back in car to go home.

11:20 Child 5 decides he has a spider on his head. ‘There’s a spider on my head! I need the hairdresser to take it off! We need to go back! The hairdresser needs to take the spider off my hair!’ Me:‘You don’t have a spider in your hair, and the hairdresser can’t cut your hair until tomorrow.’ ‘What?’ Meanwhile from the back seat comes the echo, ‘spider, spider, spider’.

11:30 We go home for lunch, playgroup, painting, and bed. I’m not sure who is doing what or in which order, but it’s good to have goals on a Monday afternoon.