This Was Yesterday ...

... and the reason behind my letter to Supernanny (below).

I pick the children up from school and the childminder. The 4 year old has a face like thunder and on seeing me bursts into tears. Thanks, I've missed you too. Someone has accidently taken her book bag home with her very FIRST reading book in it. I feel her pain, but it is even more painful when her brother, sensing her distress, decides to try and outcry her before we reach the car for no reason whatsoever.

I spend the journey home chanting in my head “Stay calm, be consistent, do not shout”.

Admittedly, my face is probably saying "Take me away from this godforsaken place, PLEASE".

I ask the 4 year old to put her shoes away 5 times before she does it. She asks me if she can watch TV approximately 10 times, I tell her “no” 10 times.

We make a Duplo zoo.

We = the 4 year old and I, whilst the 2 year old flails and shouts because he’s tired and therefore emotional (welcome to my world). He then demolishes the monkey enclosure, which sets the 4 year old off on a rant. I try to reprimand them but cannot get a word in edgeways.

Once they have calmed down in the asylum of their own bedrooms we race the Shake n Go cars across the living room carpet.

We = the 2 year old and I, whilst the 4 year old is flailing on the floor because she can’t have the 'fastest car' even though the three cars we have are the same. She then snatches the 'fastest car' which sets the 2 year old off on a rant. Once more I cannot get a word in edgeways.

When it is time for me to make dinner I offer up 15 minutes of Charlie & Lola. But, before I can even find the channel an argument has broken out about whose toes are touching whose bottom on the sofa. I switch the TV off as punishment.

In the kitchen I wonder who is being punished more, me or them, as I try to make dinner. The bickering continues, this time, as we only have one step for them to stand on to watch me. Watch me what? Seethe?

“Stay calm, be consistent, do not shout”.

Next, the relay begins of ‘When you have finished crying / arguing / pushing / snatching / irritating one another you can come out of your bedroom'.

I’m sure the calories burnt carrying alternate kicking children up and down the stairs must mean I can break from the diet and eat a small square of chocolate.

My husband finds me sat on the stairs weeping like an idiot. I feel like I have hopped the London marathon six times in a chicken suit filled with bowling balls and piranhas.

I pull myself together, release them from their bedrooms and sit with them whilst they eat their dinner, like angels, wondering if it was all a dream.

Fortunately today was better. I feel like I only hopped the london marathon five times and without the bowling balls and piranhas. I don't need Supernanny, I need a glass of wine!