It sounds like you need a hug

It’s never a good sign when you’re crying before 8.30am whilst making your beloved’s sandwiches. I was pretty excited about my day off work AND a teachers strike at school meant that there was no school run, and the possibilities for today were open.

For some reason, even though they sleep in every other WEEKDAY
(NOTE: weekends are somehow different) and we struggle to get out the door for school, TODAY, the little two were awake well before 7am, and I think it had something to do with one or the other falling out of bed, and an ensuing racket. Soon, little two were in my bed, scratching their heads, and so began the bane of motherhood.

Nit treatment. At 7.30am. Followed by combing with fine toothed combs through thick blonde hair, of two children who screech like they are being murdered. Unfortunately the murderous metal comb is the only one that does a good job on nits.

By 8am, Miss 5 is in her room, screeching about being put in her room for screeching. My delightful Miss 10 had done her own hair and was looking glorious for her day off, and Miss 2 nearly 3 is screeching about her sister screeching her room. I think she may have actually screeched “shut-up” a couple of times, which is what I was thinking but breathing through.

And there I was, not long after that, crying over the ham and salami wondering what the hell is wrong with this Thursday. I rang my beloved, who said (this is a WINNER BTW) “Oh, you sound like you need a hug; I’ll be home as soon as I can get there”. And then even before he came I felt heaps better. And by 10.15am he had his lunch, I had a hug, three girls with shiny, nit-free hair and I were off to playgroup at the park with one of the best batches of pikelets I’ve ever made.

So I could just have pulled off crisp Mum (although I think crisp Mum’s kids don’t get nits, or certainly not to the level of having to be treated/combed/murdered 3 times in one week). We all looked good. Everyone was clean. The pikelets were special. But sometimes I’m not crisp at all, and the level of frustration I had with the nits and the combing and the screeching and the morning routine is not how I want it to be. And when I try to talk about it, I get reassured (by people who I know are genuinely well meaning and caring), that it’s OK and it’s normal and being a Mum can be frustrating and overwhelming and HARD. But the truth is it’s not OK with me to feel like that this regularly. It’s not OK with me to not be patient enough, calm enough, clear enough, gentle enough to create an atmosphere in our house that is not full of screeching.

So I’m working on it. Finding ways to create more peace around here. Asking myself, what does this reflect about me? What is this an expression of? (Thanks Wilbert, you are a great teacher!). I will get to the bottom of it, and unravel the bits that need unravelling so that I don’t get hooked into this place with those girls that I don’t want to be. I’ll let you know when I’ve worked it out, for now, I’ll just enjoy the impromptu quiet in the house. A pair of au pairs got together this afternoon and requested to take the girls out for a picnic at the park in the sunshine, and this Thursday just keeps getting better. For me and for them.