I have found the last month quite hard – I have no childcare during the school holidays and they were, of course, quite hectic with a trip away with friends, then friends to stay with us.
I realise that if I don’t work, or at least have some time on my own to think about and plan my work for a week or so, I get very twitchy and short-tempered. The old ‘inner voice’ goes into over-drive with resentment towards the kids, friends, hubby, chores – pretty much everything.
It peaked yesterday when I decided to drive to Bournemouth – near to where we now live, having moved out of London last summer – for the first time to get some school clothes for my son. I took my 3 year old daughter and a wrong turning…. After half an hour of driving round central Bournemouth, we emerged again onto the ring road and eventually found the shopping centre, some grey school shorts, a latte and then the correct route home.
I had promised my daughter a trip to ‘Bounce-a-Lean’ – our favourite Monday pastime of jumping around on bouncy castles with other kids. She was an angel during the Bournemouth debacle so there was no way I was going to go back on my word, even though we were running late and I just wanted to get home and have lunch, an hour to relax and play/do chores, before picking up my son.
The rest of the day became stressful – for me, and because of me. I got short tempered in the supermarket after school, and more and more wound up as the day went on. I had a coaching call at 7.30pm and was very conscious of getting myself into a great state of mind so as to give my best to my client.
So – of course I tend to analyse these things..! – I often find in these situations that there is, as ever, a delicate balance to be found. On many occasions when we get cross with our kids it’s because we haven’t left enough time and are hurrying them along when, as we all know, kids don’t ‘do’ hurrying. It is us who decide to pack too much into a day, or allow them to have breakfast in their school uniform, thereby necessitating at least one change of clothes before we actually leave. However, the last thing we need as mums is another reason to beat ourselves up for being less than perfect.
I am very conscious of trying not to get cross with my kids when, in truth, it is me who has caused the stressful situation. Or I should say it is me who has caused the situation to be stressful. They are just being 5 and 3. I should know better than to expect too much!
So – at times like this, and usually with the benefit of hindsight, I try to work out what I could have done differently to avoid the same chain of events happening again with the same outcome. But, very importantly, avoiding berating myself for being disorganised, neurotic and ‘a terrible mother’.
I repeat my mantra – “I am doing my best. Being perfect would be so boring.”
I also remember the things that I did do well. My son’s class starts recorder lessons this term – on Mondays. When I arrived at school yesterday, I was surrounded by mums pegging it back home again as they’d forgotten the recorder. I hadn’t! Sadly the day peaked then and there, at 8.45am in the school playground – it went a bit downhill after that!