(This is a rambling post, so bare with me. I’m trying to write in a way that is coherent but I’m stressed and I’m hoping by writing it all down I can seal the stress away in this post and everything will be ok. More than anything this is probably a mumble jumble of poorly constructed sentences and glaring grammatical errors.)
It is very rare that the kids, the house and I all look good on the same day. It’s maybe happened once since Vivienne was born.
This causes me unimaginable amounts of stress and I explode over the silliest of things. But why? Why does it make me so upset? The simple fact that no one else sees that the bathroom floor needs mopping, or that the bin needs emptying or whatever. I’m a housewife and a mum. Surely I should have this shit handled by now? Some flawless routine where the kids get dressed, I get a shower, the house is sparkling and I greet my hubby from work with a smile and fresh baked pastries?
Ha. Maybe in the movies.
A Facebook post today made me realise that it really shouldn’t matter. This lady had posted a picture of her out walking with the kids. A glorious afternoon stroll. But it wasn’t. She was honest. The toddler was screaming, the other child crying about a mosquito bite and she was still in her pj’s. She had dragged the kids out to get much needed groceries.
Why do we as mums put so much pressure on ourselves? I have never been the kind of person to stay in pjs all day, and I plan on never being that person. However I can feel my “standards” slipping.
Right now I should probably be putting a wash on to make sure we all have clean clothes for our trip to north wales but I’m stuck under a nursing baby. I should probably be playing outside with the toddler, as it’s a glorious sunny day but he’s happy to sit next to me and watch tv for a bit longer.
In all honesty I’m dreading tomorrow. All the anxiety and stress I feel right now is because I know I have to travel. Maybe just maybe if everything else is perfect, then the journey in the car will be ok. Good karma and all that. So if I’ve got my shit together, it will spread out in waves and all the other people will have their shit together and everything will be ok.
Travelling with small people is horrible. The constant anxiety of which one will scream next, the miles and miles of road ahead, and since my crash, the added constant nit picking at my poor hubby for his driving style. I used to love travelling. Now I hate it. Hate it so much. I’m forever looking in the mirror waiting for someone to slam in to us. As soon as I see brake lights ahead I can feel the sick rising in my throat. I know we can stop. But what about the traffic behind? Are they as on the ball? We have so much precious cargo in the car at the mercy of everyone else on the road. Can’t someone find a way to teleport à la Star Trek?
Before we even get on the road I need to pack. But I don’t want to pack, because packing means that we will be travelling.
I need to pack all the things that a now 2 yr old and a baby will need for 5 days away. Pack for me. Desperately try and work out which clothes fit me and which ones I actually feel good in. So when hubby walks through the door this afternoon I will probably be super stressed out. Because the bags won’t be packed and I won’t like my clothes and the house will need cleaning (because the house MUST be sparkling clean before we leave) and I will probably snap at hubby and cry over some stupid little thing and get angry that the car isn’t packed “just so” and it is important that the boot is packed so perfectly that if we do have a crash, none of it will move or have the potential to cause injury and I will worry about every little thing in that boot, and the little people in the back seat, and I will spend the days in Wales dreading the journey home, wishing that the trip was already over so I don’t have to be on those roads again.
And that isn’t fair.
All this stress because I don’t want to be in a car. Because some complete twat slammed 3 tonnes of van in to the back of my car.
Fuck you van driver. Fuck you.
lycrawidow 
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