Author: Alison

Have you ever looked at your loo brush and thought, omg, what does that loo brush say about my life?

Ditto the car. Pre-kids, I travelled in a friends’ car who had a toddler. I was horrified – how could she let things get like this? Perhaps she’s still got post-natal depression? Should I say something about just how bad it looks from my perspective?

Luckily I chose to keep schtum, because now I am so embarrassed about the interior of our car that I even apologise to daughters’ friends, who ordinarily wouldn’t be looking beyond the next selfie opportunity.

When we’re mid-school term and hardly have time to piss, I don’t seem to notice things such as dirty toilet brush holders. Similarly cobwebs and stained carpets are off my radar, because they just seem too huge to deal with. Surface cleaning only until the holidays.

However, the holidays come and I find the job of living in a house in the holidays with everyone else at home, a full time job. So… when do people clear cobwebs and buy new loo brushes? I have decided that the next house I go to I will examine the above, if only to reassure myself that everyone else is slowly sinking with me.

On those rare occasions that I have a millisecond to dream, usually in the toilet, I find myself sometimes wondering whether there will ever be a day in my life when I have got everything done. Not just the thing at the top of the list, but I mean everything. Then I wonder how empty it must feel to have done everything, as I reach for the loo roll and see that, yet again, no one has bothered to change it, despite notices above every loo roll holder in the house: Changing the toilet roll will not cause brain damage. Back to reality – there is always something, a million things, to do.

Every now and again, ever so occasionally, a smug feeling will come across me in a wave – a feeling that I have accomplished just enough that day so far to warrant feeling a teeny bit smug and then, wham! One damn buzz in my pocket and my feeling of smugness is crushed, as the never ending stream of school e mails continues on a pace.

Just like every other parent, by the time the kids have left for school, I’m frazzled and quite often wound up like an elastic band on a merry go round – ready to unravel and ping in a random direction at high speed, but with certainty. By the time I’ve done the dog walk I feel like I’ve been going for hours and by the time I flop down outside Waitrose with my free coffee (sorry Tunbridge Wells), I am gasping for that hit. So it was with much amusement that I listened to Psychologist friend in exactly the same state as myself, when she rocked up at Waitrose cafe yesterday, launching into a tirade about her number 3 son’s complete lack of co-operation and total melt down that morning. And the worst thing about it, she said, revving up for the finale, is that I bet his teacher is thinking: we’ll never ask her to come in and talk to the children about her job. If she can’t manage him, what hope is there for the rest of us mere amateurs.

I have decided that the fate of the whole day can be dictated by how my hair goes up in the morning. This morning it went badly: pony tail secured, lump of hair on top, undo, redo, pony tail too low, undo, redo. Time is running out, daughters need lunches and a tight war is erupting in the background. Re do, make do – something I’m always telling daughters not to do: don’t make do, aim high. I hit my elbow on the banister on my way downstairs and my tea slops onto the carpet. I growl. Tight war stops for a moment, as participants are momentarily distracted by mum’s bad hair day.

In the office, partner shows number 1 friend the blogo (blog logo) he has designed for me. But she looks too frazzled, she told him. She just doesn’t look like that. Partner remained silent, while I beamed. Partner and I get in the van to go and teach a taekwon-do class. His bum had hardly hit the seat when he said: she just doesn’t see you frazzled.

At the ladies taekwon-do class, post-class conversation inevitably turns to kids and specifically kids afternoon napping: those who do, those who don’t any more and the bitter ladies whose kids never did. Even on a 12 hour journey to France my two didn’t sleep, hassled mum says. Crikey, I think, I’ve taken my babies on laps of the Tescos car park at midnight in days gone by, but France seems a little extreme…

Dog 2 has eaten daughter 2’s £50 Clarks school shoes. She had only worn them for a term. The dogs had been quiet. Daughter 2 came in to partner and I, brandishing a photo on her phone: look at the dogs, don’t they look cute. I glanced at the photo, then back to the tv after a quick acknowledgement of their cuteness.

Once we discovered the chewed shoe, I ask to see the photo once again. I zoom in. Dog 2 clearly has the tassel of chewed shoe in his mouth. Cute my arse.

I try to convince her that the shoes are still wearable, as one shoe is entirely untouched. She’s having none of it. She face times her friend for support and she too is having none of it. I don’t stand a chance. You’ll have to go to Tescos mum, for some cheap shoes. With so many children with feet, Tescos was the only place I used to go, until daughter 4 developed a foot problem that the doctor said required a ‘proper shoe’. Since then, all the girls want ‘proper shoes’ .

Determined, I search the charity shops for a replacement that isn’t Tescos and success! A brand new pair of brogues from Jones in Oxfam and at £15 they are more expensive than Tescos. They are almost her size – bingo!

A week on I have spent a further £7.50 on special blister plasters, £5 on insoles and £6 on new tights. I am still falling into the trap of false economy.

Daughter 1 is on a health drive. Not borne out of any particular desire to have a New Years resolution, but merely based on the fact that she ate too many weetabix minis. She is trawling the Internet to find workouts and healthy recipes.

She is excited about a workout she has found and wants me to do it with her. The trainer is American and half naked, but we’re peering at her I phone and so all gratification is lost. He is unusually casual in his approach and misses out an exercise in round two, but it doesn’t seem to matter to him at all, he just carries on with his crazy assault of motivational crap. Keira, who is positioned behind him, is supposedly representing those who cannot quite cut it at the front with their t shirts off. Keira has stopped! He shouts, don’t worry if you have to stop! Then later on he exclaims: oh my god, even Keira is doing the full press ups now! Poor Keira, daughter 1 says and we spend the rest of the workout feeling sorry for Keira. By the end of the workout the trainer cannot control his excitement: you’ve completed the workout of professional athletes, he booms through the tiny speaker. Except for Keira, daughter one says, as she looks at me, sadly.

Daughter 2 isn’t impressed with daughter 1’s new exercise regime. You’re going to make yourself anorexic, she told her. Apparently, according to daughter 1, just bananas and oats mashed together and flattened into small pancakes on a piece of grease proof paper and cooked in the oven for ten minutes, are healthy. She has so far subjected us to two batches. Can’t you leave out the banana, daughter 4 asks her. I hate bananas. That would leave just oats, daughter 1 exclaims indignantly and they wouldn’t taste right! Daughter 2 is shaking her head, worried that we are all going to fade away.