I Do Love Them Loads, But Sometimes They Are Little Shits

Hot on the heels of You Are Nearly Three, And This Is What I See, comes a post about today.  Today, where they are really tired from all the fun they’ve had with the holidays and their birthday, and so am I, and they’ve been LITTLE SHITS ALL DAY LONG.  I like to keep it real, so here’s what today was like.

This morning, I decide we are staying in.  They’ve been bought a gazillion amazing presents so we can do a morning indoors (not the whole day – only a truly horrendous hangover, illness or extreme exhaustion leads to a whole day indoors because, mostly, it makes me want to kill them and/or myself). First we get out the magic sand I’ve bought them.  It is kinda cool – like play doh, but only one colour (YES!) and less sticky.  The only thing is, if you chuck it on the floor, and your floor isn’t pristine, shit sticks to it.  So I tell them not to throw it on the floor. So they throw it on the floor.  Then they get dog hair in it, and my hair in it, and stale grated cheese and old Rice Crispies and all manner of other shit, and then they weep because the magic sand isn’t magic anymore, just a bit disgusting.

We pack it away, stale grated cheese and all.  Next we get out some sponge paints.  The paint is controlled (again, YES! I am not an artsy crafty mum.  I like my white walls.  Small children with paints are not good friends to white walls) by a sponge at the top.  The thing is though, their grubby little mitts aren’t strong enough to squeeze the paint through so the whole 17 hours* that we do the painting for involves one of them bellowing at me “MUMMY DO THE PAINT! DO THE PAINT!” while I bellow back “THERE ARE TWO OF YOU AND ONLY ONE OF ME, YOU NEED TO LEARN TO WAIT!” We pack the paints up.

I decide outside fun is needed.  I boot them out into the garden to play on their new trampolines.  There’s approximately three minutes of nice bouncing before Zach climbs onto Daisy’s trampoline and bounces on her. On her.  FFS.

I decide to go out.  My mum is here (thank Christ) and I need to get some new shoes for me (the sole of my one and only pair of boots is at least 80% unattached on one side – it makes me fall over, a lot) so off we trundle to Primark.  Just getting them in the car makes me want to end it all.  The car is parked far, far away from the house. They’ve been given much coveted umbrellas for their birthday which they insist on bringing, even though it’s not raining.  They both twat each other in the face with said umbrellas 14 times and cry a lot on the walk to the car.  They also demand the umbrellas are put both up and down 47 times.  By the time we get to the car, I’m feeling proud that I haven’t beaten either of them with the umbrellas**.    

Then we have to get in the car. I’m attempting to strap Zach in while Daisy bleats at me about something.  I’m wrestling Zach into the car seat while she makes this noise at me “UUUUNNNGHGHGHGHGARRRGGGHGHGUNNGHGHHH” interspersed with bellowings of “MAMMMMAGGGHHHHHHH!” and he’s twatting me in the face with a fucking spade and I lose my shit.  “RIGHT! IF YOU DON’T STOP SHOUTING AT ME AND YOU DON’T STOP HITTING ME IN THE FACE WITH THE SPADE THEN WE WON’T GO ANYWHERE. WHAT IS THE MATTER DAISY?”

“I give you my umbrella,” she squeaks meekly.  I grab the effing jeffing umbrella, lob it in the front seat, wrestle the spade out of Zach’s vice like grip and strap him in.  I pick Daisy up, apologise for shouting while she belts me in the face, and fling her in the car, in between cars trying to run me over (twin bonus – one twin is always on the road-side of the car – fun times for mama trying to get them in). Off we happily drive to Primark.  Zach falls asleep immediately, while Daisy bleats the entire way there that she’s tired but screeches violently if I suggest she has a snooze (I would actually sell my soul to kip for 15 minutes in the car*** during the day).

We get to Primark.  It’s not pretty.  They do literally fuck all I ask them to, pull stuff off the hangers, ignore me, run away from me, shout at me and generally piss me off. I end up buying them a pair of shoes each and a pair of mock crocs each as a reward for their awful behaviour.  Excellent parenting skills. I also buy them chips from MaccyDs on the way to the car park because that is also what you get if you’ve been a little twat (and mummy’s desperate for you to be quiet for five fucking minutes).

On the way home, we have to go to the supermarket to get food.  People at my local supermarket are lawless (lawless, I tell you) and park in the parent and toddler spaces willy nilly, regardless of whether they have toddlers.  It makes me mad.  We get to the supermarket and there are no free parent and toddler spaces.  I drive round (honestly, it’s not the proximity to the shop – it’s the space either side I want.  I wish they’d put them further away from the shop, but next to a trolley park thingy so I can easily get them out of one metaphorical prison and into another!) and still nothing.  I drive round a third time (while my children shout “WE ARE AT THE SHOP MUMMY! STOP MUMMY!”) and a guy is pulling out of a space.  I pull in and out of another parking space this other guy swings his car towards me, winds his window down, calls me a c**t and gesticulates angrily at me.

Ooh, I’m angry.  I park in the space.  You want this space? Speak nicely to me then.  Do not call me a c**t.  I get out of the car and the guy moves towards me and says in a really patronising voice “Use your eyes next time, we were waiting for ages for that space.” I lose my shit again.  He’s stood there with his wife and two teenagers and has no effing right to park in the parent and toddler parking and I have been dealing with shrieky, fighty defiant toddlers all the live long day and he is not going to intimidate me.  Moreover - have I mentioned this before? -  he just called me a c**t.  How effing dare he? I bellow at him across the car park “You’ve just sworn at me in front of your kids and mine.  Disgusting.  Just disgusting!” in a voice that, unfortunately, makes me sound like a 1950s housewife.  His wife and son also shout at me, at the same time as Daisy shouts at me “WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING MUMMY? WHO IS THE MAN?”  Essentially, there are a lot of people shouting and most of them are shouting at me.  FML. 

We shop.  It’s excruciating because I now have to avoid the family from hell, but at least the kids behave.  Oh no.  They don’t.  They scream, fight and shout the whole way round.

We come home.  They continue to scream, fight and shout over everything, in their new crocs.  Daisy makes me count how many bounces she can do on the trampoline and Zach shoots all of the Stomp Rocket rockets over the fence.  He also tries to lob his new football, but I wrestle him to the ground.

They have tea and I tell them A LOT how tired they are.  The whole time they bellow at me about what they want on their fork and I bellow back that if they’re going to be that picky then maybe they could feed themselves. Zachary asks my mum to smack his winkie at bath time; I worry he’s a pervert.  Daisy tells me after bath time that she will ‘kill me all up’; I worry she’s a psycho.  I put them to bed at 6.30.  Wearing their new crocs.****  FFS.

*10 minutes 

**I’M JOKING.

***Anywhere.  Any.  Where.

 

**** Just as I finished writing this, Daisy came to her bedroom door crying.  I went up to see her and she wept that she needed to sleep in my bed because her feet hurt.  MAYBE THAT’S BECAUSE YOU WENT TO BED WEARING YOUR CROCS. F.F.S.