It's half past two. One child keeps dawdling behind (then running ahead) while another is sad because something happened at school but she'll tell me at home, and the third is annoyed because I keep interrupting what she's telling me - to find the one who's dawdling behind (or running ahead). It's three o'clock, and we are finally home. Somehow ...
Category: The everyday family life posts
The Wedding Crashers
The Picnic
Snapshot of a woman on the cusp
The Breakup
Wash, rinse, repeat – the truth about afternoons
As anyone who works mornings and looks after kids in the afternoon knows, it's a day of two distinct halves. The morning is busy-busy, trying to cram in every last drop before the imaginary school-run klaxon sounds, and tools must be downed. Like the no-nonsense bell in a TV game show, ignoring the unsent email, the uneaten ...
Snow Daze
Wednesday morning, 5am. Pulled from sleep by a tingling feeling, not unlike childhood Christmas mornings. I slipped out of bed and looked out the window. A glistening white carpet - covering the garden, the slide, the bicycle we forgot to take in. I fell back to sleep, dreaming of magic words - snow day. And at 7, ...
The bit in the middle
"Okay, five minutes reading time, then lights out," I said to my smallest, after his story. "Six minutes? Pleeeeease?" "Okay, you can have six minutes reading time," I said, earning me a best mum ever badge that was much shinier than that worst mum ever one I'd got earlier for making him come on the school run ...
January, I okay you.
On Monday morning, when I called the kids for school, they had many questions. Here are just some of them: "Is it Saturday, can I watch TV? Okay, well even though it's Monday, can I watch TV because it's still kind of Christmas?" "It's still the middle of the night, right? It's sooooo dark, it can't be ...
The Midwinter Break
Outside, the garden is shrouded in fog, but the kids haven’t noticed, because they’re on the couch watching Gumball. They’re eating melted butter toast. I’m drinking coffee. They’re in pyjamas, and for the first morning since sometime back in August, they can stay in them. No swimming, no hockey, no football, no school. Nowhere to ...