The day didn’t start so well. I had beautiful intentions of waking early and doing a workout with the promise that “it would make me feel great for the rest of the day’. Of course, this didn’t happen. Instead, I turned off my alarm, went back to sleep, and therefore set the tone for the next 12 hours.
At 6am, I dragged myself out of bed, and started the process of waking my beautiful offspring. Miss 3 is usually awake first, unless of course we are in a rush, in which case, she seems to find her inner-threenager. Mr 6 on the other hand is doing his usual impression of a mole, burrowing as far down under the covers in a vain attempt that we might leave him be. We don’t. He gets up and after a brief breakfast (hallelulah!), we start his exercises that his occupational therapist has requested. Deep joy. Really. Only added to by son starting homework, and shortly thereafter, son and I starting to argue over his homework. I say it is constructive, but it probably isn’t really. We have a champagne Jereboam bottle already half-filled to save for his probable counselling. As I gently coax him to do his homework, I somehow break my little coffee buddy. I just about stop myself crying piteously in a caffeine-deprived state.
Mercifully, I only have one child to get out this morning as I am taking my son to a doctor’s appointment. Sadly, it appears that the entire of Brisbane is also visiting our doctor, as it takes 45 minutes to drive the 12km. I just love being late. It fills me with such a sense of calm. Finishing at the doctor, my son announces he is hungry. I hand him his snacks for morning break from school and he merrily munches away. Of course, the 12km drive now speeds past, and we make it in record time. Right before morning break in fact. Cue, mad scrambling around my car, bag and under the seats for something that is nutritious and delicious for him to take into class for morning snack. It turns out to be rice crackers that he thinks are crisps. They are neither nutritious or delicious. He informs me of that when he gets back in the car after school. It is now 9:35am. It feels like midday…
I arrive back at my house and relieve my mother in law who has been minding Miss 3, who I whip into the car, and make the mad dash to our local shopping centre, and into Kmart to purchase sound cancelling headphones for a 3 year old. We are going on a log-distance trip and she cannot be bored for even a millisecond. There is not enough wine on the plane for that. Thankfully Kmart has them – side note – has anyone found anything that you can’t buy at Kmart? We grab a nice pink and purple set – her choice – my ipad, and dash to an optician’s appointment. Cue up Frozen for her to watch for the gazillionth time. I am run through the plethora of eye tests including having fast puffs of air directed straight into the eye. My eyes don’t like this, and keep on closing, much to the frustration of the 16-year old spotty child who is in charge of my sight. My question is, why don’t everyone else’s? Does no-one else have reflexes? After spending at least 4.5milliseconds on the tiny decision about the colour, look and shape of frames that I will likely wear ON MY FACE for the next 2 years, whilst not wearing glasses so effectively being unable to see, and with a 3 year old hanging off my arm moaning that she needs a wee, we head on out. Another job done. It is now 11:18 – I feel like I have run a marathon.
Quick dash around the supermarket to pick up some essentials as I realised I have signed up to doing the casserole food drive for school and haven’t made the casserole. Then a hop, skip and a jump home via the post office and the petrol station. I get Miss 3 home, make her lunch, which she eats without a single moan or meltdown. No, wait, what? That’s not true. I believe this particular meltdown was because she wanted just a ham toastie, not a cheese and ham toastie. Of course, I hadn’t offered her a ham and cheese toastie, never-mind made one, or in fact, mentioned cheese at all. But it was definitely worth the meltdown. Cheese crisis averted, I made a vegetable sauce from scratch, defrosted some mince, made a béchamel sauce and cooked the mince. By which time, she has eaten one half of a toastie. It is now 1pm and she hasn’t slept. Is it too early for wine?
I coax her to sleep and head to my office to do an hour of work before she gets up again. I am sure there is an equation somewhere about the length of time it takes to get a child to sleep being directly disproportionate to the time that they actually stay asleep. If there is not, there should be.
We then head out to pick up her brother who has another appointment to attend. I am madly balancing the lasagne, the 3 year old who won’t walk up hills, and my patience, when I arrive into school attempting not to look quite like the hot mess mum I am. Woohoo people, we have reached 2:30pm.
Quick dash back to mother-in-law’s house to drop off Miss 3, before taking Mr 6 to his next appointment. I sit still for 45 minutes. It feels like absolute heaven. I gather my strength together knowing that the worst part of the day is about to be upon us…. putting on the soccer socks and shin guards for Mr 6’s soccer training. His soccer socks are literally tighter than a Scottish man’s wallet and his patience to sit still whilst I surgically strap them to his wee legs is minimal. I, of course, always keep my patience, and never ever resort to screaming at him to “sit still”. Yeah, right.
Soccer training is done, with a blessedly shorter game as it started to rain. Mostly the blessing is because Miss 3 was determined to be involved in the game, and seemed to continuously find herself on the pitch, just at the point where the attackers may have a chance at goal. She’s a born defender.
Home, and the end is in sight. Just dinner, bath, stories and bed. I can do this.
Dinner is the lasagne I made earlier for school. There are 2 things that I cook well. One is lasagne. Miss 3 disagrees. Loudly. For a long time. Husband has subbed in so I am writing this, and I can hear his slightly pleading tone as she refuses to eat. She loves pasta, and bolognaise, and cheese sauce. But the three together are something the devil has created. She will not eat.
And so ends my day off. The night was not that hectic, there were probably a couple of meltdowns about one thing or another. But all in all, I feel rested, relaxed, and ready for work tomorrow. At least the coffee works there.
