To all the witching hour mums,
It was one of those evenings where I wondered for the 875th time how far my voice carries and if my neighbours had picked up the phone to call child services yet. I was faced with the world’s worst toddler determined to break my spirit, and a four year old with a new-found disdain for my existence and the banality I call ‘conversation’. They were screaming in tandem with a mix of rabid starvation and criminal neglect because I wouldn’t play with them and cook at the same time.
But just as I was on the verge of placing my head THROUGH the wall of my kitchen, I smiled because I knew I wasn’t alone. YOU were with me.
At that moment, there were toddlers across the country, thrashing on the kitchen floor, enduring the torture of not being picked up. There were preschoolers whingeing without pause, in a way that was making their parents want to push their own eyeballs right into their skull until they could see the faint memories of the days when 5 p.m. meant sitting in the pub with friends.
I know I wasn’t the only one who put the water on to boil, then ran to put the towels in the dryer, popped in a quick load of whites, ran back to the kitchen, picking up the tsunami of junk that just won’t stay IN ONE ROOM FOR GOD’S SAKE, IT’S ALL I ASK, then went to wash some dishes, got the 912th request for food and realised I hadn’t put the pasta in the water.
I know I wasn’t the only one wondering why there has never been an award for cooking while holding a tantrumming toddler because it’s a goddamn gold-medal-worthy skill.
I know I wasn’t the only one wondering if‘driven insane by whining’ is a legit legal defence and if crime rates are higher at dinnertime.
Thousands of whingeing toddlers. Thousands of nagging preschoolers. Plus all those screaming babies and whining schoolkids and sulking teens. And thousands of mums wishing someone would notice they are working their arses off.
I notice. I see you. Like, not peering through your windows or anything, but I know you’re out there doing the same slog, at the same time, just like me. And that’s a pretty cool feeling.
Love Lauren xx