The Week

Ever year since I've had children I've experienced the most cruel and torturous of parenting ordeals - The Week.

When I was a new mum The Week was a horrid shock. I fought against it, bemoaned my bad luck, even shed a few tears.  Somewhere along the line I came to the realisation that mothers all over the globe were also plodding through The Week and the best method for survival was to just relax and go with it.

What am I on about? I'm talking about that dreaded week, that long, boring, and exhausting week that usually occurs once or, ( if you're spectacularly unlucky) several times a year.  It's the week where every child in your household is as sick as a dog.  And what makes this week just so so bad, is that it will also be the week that your significant other is away on a business trip, working late, on night shift, or sick themselves. Mothers out there, tell me I'm not alone!

As you may have guessed by now, I'm smack in the middle of The Week.

I've got one with tonsillitis, a chesty cough, and a blocked nose, and the other with an ear infection, asthma, and a blocked nose. It's a round of antibiotics for all!  One needs medicine on an empty stomach one hour before food, the other needs theirs on a full stomach with a probiotic on the side. There's Ventolin to remember, paracetamol doses to keep on top of, and always, always, a nose that desperately needs wiping.

We're spending the hours in the living room with the heater on, the lights dimmed to protect sensitive eyes, endless kids TV programming playing. Despite being home all day long, I manage each night to go to bed with the knowledge that yet again I have not cleaned the bath, or folded the washing, or put the sewing machine away.  The hours are both never ending and speeding by in a flash.

In amongst The Week you will also be familiar with The Day. It's the day somewhere in The Week, normally day 2 or 3 in my experience, where it all feels impossible. The children bicker and won't listen. Everyone is miserable at once and you can't do anything to please anyone. You look longingly out the window and imagine escaping. You picture yourself running maniacally down the road laughing deliriously.

It is, of course, a fundamental law of motherhood that The Day will coincide with something else equally annoying. Your partner will be extremely late home from work, your power will go out, or maybe someone will use a chainsaw next to your house all day long.  Yesterday was The Day for me, and my husband got home from work just as I was getting ready to go to bed.

So what's a mother to do to preserve her sanity?

1. Forget cleaning. Forget cooking. Forget looking decent in any way, shape, or form.
2. Order your groceries online and get them delivered. Don't forget tissues like I did!
3. Accept that it will be a crapper of a week. If you fight it, it'll make it worse. Just accept it.
4. Get some earplugs. This is so that the endless loop of animated movies and kids TV presenters don't make you lose your marbles.
5. Walk around outdoors at least once a day. Even a circuit of the garden helps enormously.
6. Unless it turns to custard, night time is when your shift ends. If you have someone else to get up to the kids in the wee hours make sure you let them know it's their turn.
7. Once the kids are finally asleep you know what to do. Chocolate, wine, reality TV... choose your poison and indulge freely.

If you, like me, are in the middle of The Week, take heart. Every day that passes is another little conquest.

Now if you'll excuse me I have a snotty nose beckoning....