So much for getting up early...
While flicking through movies looking for something to watch last night, I almost fell asleep, and thought “what the hell am I doing?”. I remember going to bed, and I remember pulling the covers over me as I thought “I must put my phone on charge”. I woke this morning at 6am, and looked across at my phone on the bedside table. I didn't plug it in. I must have fallen asleep immediately.
I stared at the ceiling for a while, thinking about getting up, and thinking about how getting up early would give me three or four hours to myself before the rest of the house started hassling me. I fell asleep again.
The second time I woke up, the numbers on the clock were heading towards 9am. I can't remember the last time I slept in that long. I slid out of bed, picked the phone up, grabbed some half-sensible clothes (we're going out later), and wandered down to the shower. After getting out of the shower I discovered the younger children were already up, and had trashed the lounge and the kitchen. It took me half an hour to clear up after them.
It's now 10am, and I'm hiding out in the study/junk room writing this. We're supposed to be heading out to visit my other half's Mum a bit later. Middle girl has just had a spectacular tantrum after I asked her to go and get dressed. This is the same girl that trashed the kitchen this morning. I would be inclined to ban her from going out to dinner later, but I'm not allowed to do that. She just shut her sister out of her own bedroom, and is now smashing the place up.
Is this the point where I write “I can't even” again ?
And now everybody is shouting at everybody. Fun times. I wonder if I can get away with taking the Kindle with me, and hide in a book for the rest of the day ?
I need to turn these blog posts around somehow. Fly on the wall reporting of family life must seem like a constant rolling battle to most people – I guess that's because it is – and that's also why I invariably use the internet as an escape.
The entertaining posts almost always happen when I'm away with work – on my own. When I'm not walking into trashed rooms, endless rounds of washing clothes, and children who have lied through their teeth about having done their homework, brushing their hair, or brushing their teeth.
Perhaps I'm being unfair. Funny moments do still happen every day, but I've stopped writing about the children because they are growing up – their story has become their own to tell. I get really annoyed with parents sharing every moment of their children's lives on Facebook – they never seem to stop to think about their child one day having to face the stories that have been written about them. It must be a bit like having the Papparazzi living in your own house.
Anyway. I've now been interrupted six times while writing this. What should have taken ten minutes to write has taken three quarters of an hour. Apparently I need to go and tell Miss 15 that we are going without her (because yet again she hasn't got up), and then drag the younger children in from the park outside, where they are playing under threat of death if they get dirty (because of course after they put on their smart clothes, they wanted to go and play football in them).
Fun times.