One of the great joys of parenting is the almost constant sense of bewilderment and the nagging feeling that you’ve missed something quite important somewhere along the line which will, in short order, come back to you just that little bit too late to do anything about it. Like being the only parent who forgets it’s non-uniform day, or odd socks day, or that it’s an INSET day and you’re the only parent who has taken their child to school (sorry, Thing 1). I’m nineteen years plus into this mothering lark and I still haven’t got the hang of it. If I end the day with the same number I started with I’m counting it as a win, even now. If they’re fed and clean, all the better though these days they take care of the latter themselves and they’re getting better at the former.

Don’t get me wrong, dear readers. I did not start this journey with quite such a cavalier attitude to my offspring.

When I started down this road I had visions of being the sort of parent who’d have all the kids’ clothes out ready for the morning, all co-ordinated and cute. I’d do baby led weaning and nary a jar of Cow & Gate cauliflower cheese would grace my shelves let alone baby crack (aka Petit Filou). Annabel Karmel would be my guru. They would be breakfasted on something healthy and be at school ready to learn with their socks up and their hair in plaits (not Thing 3, at least until Covid hit and his response to our DIY haircut was to refuse to have his hair touched for the next two years).

I wouldn’t be that parent who was in Tesco at 8am shoving the food tech ingredients into a basket and hissing ‘measure them when you get there!’. I would remember parents’ evening and to buy end of term cards for teachers, but not Roses or Quality Street. I too would be immaculately turned out, possibly with grown up shoes, tamed hair and flicky eyeliner. I’d be on time to the childminder, and would have meal plans that didn’t involve fish fingers. I would remember to book the appointments for parents evening.

Mum Barbie (TM) lived rent-free in my head, as the youth would have it.

I am sure I could have been Mum Barbie, really, except for that thing called real life that kept getting in the way. Thing 1 was a fussy eater, colicky when she was small and then she didn’t like pureed butternut squash and sweet potato, or green things. She would like one thing for a week so you’d lay in a stock. Big mistake. Huge mistake. I learned. Petit Filou to the rescue, as at least she was eating. At 19 she’s still a fussy eater. Still, I loathe beans and pulses of all description because of the texture so I can’t really criticise. Things 2 and 3 – jars all the way. Sanity saved. Thing 2 has turned out to be a foodie and will try anything – her favourite food was always ‘someone else’s’ and if we mislaid her in a restaurant she was to be found peering over a table at other people’s food, with an unnerving hard stare similar to that patented by Paddington.

As for the co-ordinated cute clothes – well, there were clothes and thank heavens the kids were cute. Tracy the childminder/lifesaver used to say that the parents at the school knew which parent had been responsible for dressing the child that morning. Three days a week I’d be off to work at 6am and Daddy was in charge of clothes. Just because everything has stripes it doesn’t mean they match. My own dressing for several of those early years was more ‘has anyone been sick on me? Nope? Good to go!’ than a ‘fit check’ as Thing 1 tells me these are called.

At no point did my children arrive at school with their socks up. Thing 1 was often handed over straight to first aid thanks to her ability to fall over from a standing start, while Thing 2 was usually screaming in fury at being left at school. Thing 3 was a dirt magnet. I gave up: they were there. I wasn’t late, although my hair remained (and remains) untamed and I still live in DMs and Converse. I tried ballet flats but with my Hobbit feet they’re never going to work. Flicky eyeliner remains beyond me even with felt tip pens and a stencil.

I was in awe of those parents who managed with swan-like serenity to juggle their offspring from school to activity to gym to bed on time, probably via something home cooked and nutritious. The ones with the perfect blonde highlights, yoga pants and immaculate children with big bows in their hair. Their kids probably came home with the same clothes they started with and didn’t lose whole PE kits (twice). The ones who made things for cake sales, ran the PTA (in school hours – way to alienate the working parents, folks!) and who always managed to make it to school assemblies and sports days in time to sit at the front to cheer their child on, even though we weren’t supposed to. I hated sports days as a child and as a teacher, and even as a parent that never changed.

The Playground Mum Barbie cliquey mums at the gates who gathered in twittery groups and went for coffee at Costa and yoga classes together while I hared off down the hill to the station. Who collared mums they’d never usually deign to speak to when they wanted your support to get a child with what would turn out to be ADHD removed from the school ‘for his own sake, so he can have the care he needs (simper simper)’. The ones who share carefully curated family pictures on their socials with hashtags like ‘making memories’ and ‘so blessed’. In my head I knew that these weren’t ‘real life’ and their reality was probably much like mine, but one thing you learn when you live with mental health issues is that your head is a bloody liar at times.

No one carefully curates the moments when your phone rings with the school number on it and your heart sinks. Is it the umpteenth courtesy call of the week to say that Thing 2 has clashed heads with her inseparable buddy again and just to be aware. The fourth call in one day to say that the three year old had got overexcited playing dinosaurs in the playground before school and bitten someone, and did we need to have a chat about his behaviour before he started school six months later?

No one curates the moment when you’re trying to wrangle three kids out of the door and you wonder when it’s your turn to have the meltdown at the idea of putting shoes and coat on and going somewhere. The cluster feeding when they’re either attached to you or screaming and you can’t put them down, so you walk for hours pushing the buggy and crying quietly knowing that as soon as you get back to the house it’ll start again. The moment when they found the crayons or the maple syrup and redecorated the walls or carpet, or when they refused the carefully cooked fish fingers but ate the compost from the plants, or when you decided that enough was enough and everyone was having the same dinner. Stroganoff Gate remains one of the worst evenings of my life. When you’re on the phone trying to explain to the doctor that no, I can’t bring in the one with the suspected ear infection as the other one has confirmed chicken pox. I can laugh now about the year I begged – only half in jest – for just 24 hours without a sick child. I made it to 25 and it started again. No really, I can laugh about it now.

Post-Natal Depression Barbie has never taken off, for some reason. Even poor old Pregnant Barbie was discontinued. There’s probably a reason for that.

Eventually you find your playground tribe. Often it’s the ones also dashing up the hill from the train, cursing the existence of Platform 1 and having to cross the bridge and the fact that there’s never a bus when you really need one. I was lucky and had a childminder who did pick-ups three days a week but on the rare occasions… We moved schools when Thing 1 went to secondary school: Things 2 and 3 started at the primary school in our village, where the worst thing that I heard on the first day was ‘They tried to play with me and they didn’t even introduce themselves!’. The playground parents were much friendlier, and the school was more welcoming. I think I got the hang of it all eventually – I still miss the odd parents evening, as telling me about a March date in the previous September, and sending 13 page newsletters is too much to wade through.

I think I’m winning. There’s three kids here and I’m pretty sure they’re mine – I’ll take it! #soblessed

Things making me happy this week

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• Not this little thug, who attempted to hamstring me earlier for having the temerity to walk past her
• Making a job offer to a new team member – made my day!
• Thing 2’s new obsession with sourdough – cinnamon and raisin has been my favourite this week, though the rosemary and confit garlic is pretty impressive
• Bridgerton. So frothy and flirty and fun. Benedict is redeemed
• https://www.instagram.com/realpuppetregime/ on Instagram – very funny
• Several days of sunshine, which went a long way to curing all ills
• My thumb joint slowly improving – hopefully I’ll be able to crochet again soon

And that’s it from me for the week! Hope you’ve had a good one too.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Kate Shugak Investigations 5 – 10 – Dana Stabenow. That’s it. Nothing else.