Mundane Midweek

In which everything went wrong and it was mostly all my fault

Welcome to Baby Brain, a space where I – Charlotte, hi! – write about family life with three small children – Poppet (m, 5 years), Pickle (m, 4 years) and Peach (f, 1 year.) Those are not their real names. These are real stories from our days.

Today got off to a bad start, with Peach waking me several times in the early hours after refusing to go to sleep the night before until way past bedtime, and then summoning me to sit with her until morning approximately 25 minutes after she finally went down. I snuck out of bed at 6am with the intention of showering, already cranky after having gotten approximately zero time to myself for 5 and a half years the last three days, and was called back in within moments for BULK (milk). Peach was crying, my husband was nowhere to be found, and as I got into position to let her latch, Poppet appeared doing a loud American accent that is very funny in the light of day but not so much when you’re pinned to the bed by a toddler and your school age child has a mad glint in his eye as he shouts like a cowboy right outta Texas and you fear, legitimately fear, that he might be about to jump on you both, and that that jump will result in something wild like three cracked ribs. After the husband was located (exercising, the audacity) Pickle also appeared, complaining about it being morning because he is not a morning person and thinks mornings are TOO BRIGHT. The children went downstairs after much shouting at my breasts from the baby who is not a baby and yet refuses to wean, and I had about five minutes to get ready before they were calling for me again.

I went down to breakfast and had a massive fight with my husband that I won’t go into other than to tell you that he was wrong, and that pointing out to your wife that her 18 month old “just needs her” when she’s overwhelmed and trying to escape the screaming of the 18 month old who is climbing her legs and slapping her as she tries to get everyone ready is never going to end well. Especially when that 18 month old is 19 and a half months old which is relevant, actually.

After the fight I walked the children to school, arriving in time to see the caretaker – who I thought was my friend but APPARENTLY NOT – close the gates, at which point I had to drop off Poppet at the school office, where I was forced to sign the late register. Fuming, I listed ‘screaming toddler’ (full stop) as my reason for being late, in the hope that they would make a note against my name and realise that asking someone with multiple children why they’re seconds late is not only cruel but unnecessary. I moaned with some mums that had also signed the register, explained to a dad that I was wearing a jumper on a hot day because nothing else was clean, dropped Pickle at preschool, and took Peach on a train to a town 20 minutes away where we were booked into a play centre. As we waited for our session to begin, I took her for cake. We shared a vanilla cruffin –

Best shot I could get, she was grabbing at it

– as I had a cup of tea, and although I initially expected her to have a nap, I found a moment of pure peace in the chaos when she was sat on my knee, my face in her hair as she picked at our pastry and smiled in delight at the sheer amount of sugar she was about to consume. The sun shone through the windows to illuminate her from which came a lovely moment, and then we went to buy her some shoes which was less lovely, because she spent the whole time screaming in terror at the kind woman trying to check her shoe size, after I’d had to borrow a pair of socks because my husband got her dressed this morning and for some reason put her in a pair of adult size fives. (Honestly.) As I was throwing Peach’s new shoes under the pram having had them chucked across the shop when trying to put them on her as she shouted that she needed her ‘cocks’ (socks), I spotted Pickle’s preschool lunch peeking from under my bag. Checking the train times and realising there was absolutely no hope of me getting it to him in time, I called the husband I had vowed never to speak to again and begged him to drop in a new lunch, which he did, via a supermarket meal deal that Pickle was apparently very excited about but then didn’t eat. I hassled said husband until he confirmed the delivery had been made, by which time Peach and I, after a detour to buy socks –

Evidence of new socks under evidence of new shoes

– had begun playing together for what would be a blissful hour and a half in the role play play centre, where she mostly played with the dollies and the faux supermarket, and I mostly watched a couple referring to one another as mummy and daddy whilst acting like characters in a bad play who have not only failed the chemistry test but also never laid eyes on each other ever before. We played until Peach was hungry, at which point I gave her Pickle’s lunch and wheeled her to the local M&S, where I picked up my husband’s favourite chocolate mini rolls because I am a good wife no matter what anyone tells you, OK? Peach threw the cheese sandwiches in my face and then across the floor and fell immediately to sleep hunched with her face on her knees, after which I checked my phone for train times only to realise it is Thursday, and Thursday is the day Poppet has to hand in his homework, and not only had I forgotten to give Poppet his homework to hand in, I hadn’t had him do it at all. I groaned at my own ineptitude as I narrowly avoided missing the train thanks to being unsure on what to eat myself, picked up the boys without fanfare and headed home.

Now I’m sat having a cup of tea having just banged my knee really hard against the bed and having barely suppressed the urge to scream not in pain but in frustration, the children are playing nicely next to me and I know I’ll have to get up soon because the fish fingers aren’t going to cook themselves, but also I’m going to enjoy the quiet first because this has been a topsy turvy day and even mums that have gone wrong at every turn deserve to rest.

*And breathe.*

Until next time 🧦

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