I have morning despair a lot. This is when you wake up without bluebirds singing chirpily around your head, no sunbeam dancing on the floor ready to shine on you and no soundtrack like ‘oh what a beautiful morning I’ve got a beautiful feeling everything’s going my way’ or whatever. On one such morning (okay, […]
Category: Motherhood
The Great Escape
He leans nonchalantly against the lamppost, hands stuffed in his pockets, one eye slightly squinting as he surveys the scene around him. ‘How are you feeling?’ I say to my son. A slight shrug of the shoulder, one hand runs through his recently cut hair. ‘Actually…’ he looks around again, the crowds of children returning […]
It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me
Why do I love this line from Taylor Swift’s song so much? Why do I want to play Anti-Hero on repeat? Am I a Tween, filled with so much hope and hormones, hoping that one day I will be just like the powerhouse Taylor, who writes songs and writes off men with equal panache? No. […]
Obligations
If left to his own devices, my eldest son – sociable, wonderful – would lock himself away upstairs to ‘tell himself stories’. Of late, he wants woken up early to make sure he has time to tell himself a story before the freneticism of the day slaps him in the face. After school, he drops […]
Rocketship
Mum tan we get astronaut dog food and astronaut human food and space shoots and catch a rocketship and fly to the moon? I am distracted. I am shooing the dog from the dishwasher where he’s gorging on the leftover sauce dripping down the metal front as I throw the dishes in. Behind me stands […]
Morning song
In the quiet of the morning, sometimes I wonder at all the young eyes staring at me. Their expectant gaze is matched by a padding of little feet – those of the puppy loping down the stairs, of the toddler, the five-year-old and the seven-year-old. There is a sweet sliver in this glaring early hour […]
The ‘now’ principle
Life works on the principle of now, someone wise reminded me yesterday. It doesn’t work on the past principle and it does not work on the future principle, he said. It works on the now principle. So far, so obvious. And yet glimpse inside your head – now – and what the hell is going […]
Exodus
Lately leaving the house seems like such a Herculean task I have, on occasion, not been able to do it. There is nowhere to go, sure (oh GOD let’s not get into that), but with three small children you have to ‘go’ somewhere, even if it is standing on your own doorstep, even if it […]
Amigos
I’d thought that the ever-present stress that is the pandemic hadn’t affected my children at all. Yes, they had to wash their hands a lot more often; they saw me glued to the news for stretches of time, whereas before I’d diligently hidden my furtive information gathering, worried that the mere sight of a phone […]
Hooked
I’ve had lots of #parentingfails this week, more than I’ve had in the last few months at least. I’ve outdone myself, in fact. I didn’t realise I was quite so stressed until these last few tense days of not being able to cope with anything small child related. Oh, they’re just doing their usual ‘I […]