School mornings.

Tuesdays herald the start of the school week for us here, this year. It’s not that I don’t love the six hours with only one child following me around like a duckling – because I do, very much – it’s that the stress of getting everyone ready and out of the door on time for school drop off is sending me grey.

It feels like herding cats, or shepherding mice. Like trying to get goldfish to swim in synchronicity without the benefit of a belly full of iron shavings and a magnet.

And I’m trying not to shout, I really am, but when one child is squealing a high pitched squeal and slamming doors and the other child is trying to create a cat trap – when both of them ought to be eating their porridge, that’s when I start to get a bit shouty.

Once breakfast is done, then it’s a haze of hair brushings and face washings and where the hell are your shoes and can you brush your teeth please, no, I mean really brush them and library book and stop shoving and just get in the car already, leave the bloody cat alone.

But I know that even as I hate these mornings because the children are so small that I need to spoon feed them the next step in the getting ready proccess, it is worth it for the quiet. For the chance to drink just one cup of tea without someone shouting that SHE IS PUSHING ME or HE TOOK MY THING.

Definitely.