Today I am grateful once again for Monday.
The weekend ended in the usual way. Mom cleaned up. Children messed up. Mom packed dishwasher. Children brought through 500 plates and cups. Dishwasher said eeeeeeeee! F u and stopped mid cycle. Mom cleaned up kitchen and packed away the buffet deli counter. Children feigned starvation and thought dinner was actually the post-lunch pre-dinner snack and/or round 7 of a 12 course meal. Mom nags yet again about the R10000 Nutella jar having to last 30 days but is already 3/4 empty. Children look confused at Mom in that look that says, “well we will just have to sacrifice you to the nut gods for more Nutella if it comes to it.”
Mom heats up her dinner, sits down at precisely the time both kids yell “Mom”. Mom explains nicely but with a raised voice that she hasn’t eaten and her food will get cold. A debate erupts on the validity of her argument as they only need her quickly to come upstairs and see something urgently. Miss Janey is persuasive enough to rope in some big brother support who in turn pleads her case as indeed urgent. Mom abandons now tepid dinner, stomps upstairs to go and see that Ava replaced the red Lego brick with a different colour Lego brick and needed my nails to take off a Lego “jumper stud” piece. Phew crisis indeed, and there I was trying to eat a meal. What was I thinking? Shame on me.
Mom reheats dinner and eats it standing in kitchen in front of microwave, as it is a proven fact that as soon as her arse hits a chair, it ignites a chain reaction of needy wonton children nagging incessantly.
Children play nicely for 5min with the sound of giggles quickly turning to groans and moans and tears as they turn on each other for what feels like 500 minutes while literally bouncing off furniture, doing head stands on the beds, dirty feet decorating walls, practicing the not so subtle art of Thai chi on each other, and dragging the offending evil sibling out the bedroom.
Meanwhile mom is having a hissy fit while packing away all the toys Ava ever owned, picking up Lego and peeling play dough off the carpet, again. Children look confused as to why mom is yelling incoherently in an ultrasonic voice, mainly to herself, on the lack of discipline, respect, help, routine, a decent bedtime, quietness, and why on earth there is Nutella on the dishwasher, on the cutting board on the the bin lid, on the blanket, and even the wall, the hissy fit has now reached the level of shaking and flapping, rivalling a two year’s tantrum and coming up triumphant. Well if two years could swear that is.
I socially distanced bumped into my neighbour who was doing her walk up and down the complex while I was getting the flat tyre on my car repaired. She looked at me with that sympathetic side nod and asked, “I don’t know how you are you coping?” She’s lying. She knows exactly how I am coping as I suspect, considering I am an end unit and she is my closest neighbour, that she is the only one who is actually listening to me. Every last hysterical, tearful, desperate plea to be left alone for 30min, 15min, 10min hell even 5 effing minutes. She is the one who deserves a medal.
My reward is a bedtime roulette game of whose bed I’m going to pass out in? Hint, it’s hardly ever mine unless both kids are there too. Then in a blink of an eye, my alarm sounds and I make my way downstairs with tingly half numb appendages, to be greeted by a sight suspended somewhere around 8pm the night before. Lights on, tv paused mid program.
Ah… thank you for Monday’s. They mark the start of a five day week where I get to do everything I do on weekends but also squeeze in a full day’s work and some fun, education learning@home activities with the kids.
Hands up for Mondays. Bring it on!
Perfectly Sorted 
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