Recently, someone messaged me with a question about what my day looks like with a socially unacceptable number of children, a job, and a dog with half a tail and barely any teeth.
Okay, so perhaps there wasn’t quite so much curiosity about my dog’s dental challenges or her curtailed tail, but I’m sure they intended to ask about she-who-spends-far-too-much-time-at-the-vet’s also, and so I’m taking it as a given.
“How do you do it all?” came a follow-up question.
My first thought was to just brush over the ask. To be honest, I didn’t really want to answer because I was more than a bit mortified at the idea that anyone, anywhere, might be under the impression that I have it all under control. But then I remembered that it’s not easy coming up with ideas of things to write about all the time, and so I figured maybe I shouldn’t look a gift column in the mouth.
‘There wasn’t a dry eye in the house’: Smallest baby ever cared for at Rotunda goes home
Easter activities: 10 family-friendly days out and events to enjoy over the holidays
Jen Hogan: My day as a mother with seven children, a job, and a dog with half a tail
Are adolescent boys being influenced by online misogyny and porn to commit sexual assaults?
The problem is that answering a question like that will likely reveal me to be a giant fraud. “Supermum”, some sound, supportive women have on occasion said. Sometimes, that’s in response to a picture I’ve posted of a cooked and unburnt frozen pizza on Instagram (it’s a bar set low, granted). Other times, it’s because my eyeliner is straight, I’ve filed copy on time, or I remembered to make sure all my children were actually in the car before reversing out of the driveway.
Like I said, sound, supportive women.
Of course, these massive achievements, as posted on social media – because let’s be honest, what’s the point in achieving anything if you’re not going to put it on the ‘gram, at least – rarely tell the full story. While my frozen pizza and eyeliner are looking all fabulous, chances are there’s not a bed in the house made, or there’s a cake sale or birthday party looming that I’ve forgotten about. But hey, for now, the kids are fed, and did I mention my eyeliner was on fleek?
[ ‘I really hate being late, but, well, I’m always late’Opens in new window ]
Is that not what diaries are for? I hear you ask. To take note of those important upcoming dates so that you don’t find yourself with on-fleek eyeliner but not a bun to your name? Well, gentle reader, I laugh in the face of diaries. “Aha,” I say, (in a far cooler manner than Alan Partridge), “it is better to fear the worst and hope things are not as unmanageable as the mounting dread suggests than to write it down and remove all doubt.”
But I digress. How does my day look? Well, that depends on lots of things. The nature of my job makes it unpredictable – a bit like the school day morning rush. The only guarantee is that some child or other will have misplaced a shoe or tie, to be realised just as we’re about to leave the house. After that, all bets are off.
Himself normally does the school lunches, but one day last week when he was away, I, being a very superior parent, made a Bolognese the night before. Mostly, so I could boast about it. “I shall give this to my children for their lunch and it shall be good,” I declared to microdog. But alas, on waking early the next morning to make some accompanying pasta, as a superior parent might, I discovered the Bolognese still sitting on top of the cooker and not in the fridge.
Much Googling of “how likely am I to give my children food poisoning if I feed them meat that was left out overnight?” later, I decided the only safe thing was to leg it to the local shop, pick up a few pains au chocolat and write a note of apology for not quite keeping with the school’s healthy eating policy.
A decidedly non-supermum moment, and it wasn’t yet 8am.
Work, parent, run from pitch side to pitch side. We all know the familiar drill, mine perhaps amplified by numbers. Sometimes, all three of those things happen at once. On those rare sunny days experienced in Ireland, we tend not to bother too much with homework, on account of my deeply held belief that homework is a load of nonsense, and getting outside to play is far more important after a day at school. This is a hill I’m prepared to die on. Cape or no cape.
Is homework a waste of time?
Bedtime is largely hellish. And it has always been thus. Because my children, unfortunately, inherited their mother’s sleep-resistant ways. “Sleep is for the weak,” they howl, or at least that’s what the pre-bedtime opposition sounds like.
Anyway, here we are on the Easter school hols. And my intricate plan to manage the juggle?
I’ll be winging it as always.
Godspeed. Again.
