Hello, in this little Spirited Family, if you have read some of my posts, nothing is uneventful. Sometimes, I wonder if what is actually happening is real or a dream. By golly, I sometimes sit and reflect on our life and literally end up laughing out loud at some of the shit that happens. This family can be funny….but we are a herd and we love each other. That’s all that matters…

The hours

I’ve been MIA because life has been CRAY CRAY… me getting back to work after maternity leave, Troll starting at his daycare, me getting into a routine with the school run for 2 kids. WHOA! Who knew adding 1 little person can rock the boat that much. For most of it, we have fun in the mornings, even when I’m freaking out that we are running late. Some mornings it’s a screaming match. Some mornings we look like the Brady bunch.

But here’s a rundown of the day before I started working again:

The day started off fairly well. Dudie didn’t have too many issues getting up or getting ready for school. Dude sends me a message “Enjoy your last day at home”. I have been taking Troll to his daycare every morning for a week to get used to his new environment too. I generally sit in the office and watch him on the monitors fro an hour of so. Then we leave for home. After the school run, I dash back to Dudie’s school to buy books on his wishlist from the Travelling Bookshop. (I never carry cash so I had to go swipe my card myself – imagine me giving Dudie all that cash – Uhm I think NOT!). Then my Aunt calls to say they are in the city for a few hours, can we have a quick visit? I say sure but I have a few errands and will call when I’m home. Then Troll decides to be miserable and make a monster poop. I quickly calculate and decide we are only 5 km’s from home, let’s go home.

How do the hours in a day go by so quickly?

At home, I change Troll and give him a solid feed. I make myself a warm steaming cup of coffee. One of our dogs seems to think she is a cat. So the cat decided to become Houdini, and jumped the wall or escaped somehow… Troll decides to make an explosive poop AGAIN! I change him, and voila as I pick him up he vomits all over both of us. So I change him and myself… My phone keeps ringing. It’s the neighbour to tell me the dog is casually lying outside in front of their gate…WTF? How did she get there? I rush outside to take her back in. Give her a stern scolding and let it be.

Troll decides to nap and I think, fuck it, let me enjoy this coffee. Then the estate agent calls, she has a potential tenant for us but urgently needs the key to the flat. So I say ok I will bring the key in a bit. By now, it’s 11am and I now need to race all the way to the other end of Pretoria and drop the keys and then race back for Dudie’s pickup. Then I remembered I needed stuff for Troll. I pack up the sleeping baby and stop at Clicks. OMG!!!! This Clicks is becoming notorious for the lack of “efficient” customer service in the checkout queue. I’m not even kidding. They are by far the slowest I have ever seen.  Whether it is busy or not, they will work at the same snail pace as they usually do. Eventually, I am out of there and hitting the road. Why is it that when you are in a hurry seems everyone else is on a “go slow”?

I make it to the estate agent in record time. I didn’t even switch the car off. I just gave her the keys outside the estate. LOKL. Back in the car – thankfully Troll is sleeping through ALL of this. I rush to meet my family. I managed to hug and greet properly and down a Chai Latté in a few minutes. Ticked that off my list, now to rush to pick up Dudie. On route, I decide to pop a chocolate eclair sweet in my mouth. Now, this is NOT a sweet that you can eat very fast. I get to school and damn this sweet is still in my mouth. As I approach the gate, the teacher wants to talk to me and I can’t open my mouth as the damn sweet is now stuck between my top and bottom back molars… As I try to speak I have drool dripping on the side of my mouth. Thankfully, I just raised the baby to my right cheek and avoided a very embarrassing situation. As I collect Dudie, he announces that he needs to go back for his water bottles. I’m thinking of chaining the damn thing to him, as lately he just seems very blasé about its whereabouts…Well until I ask about it.

What’s another hour in my day…

One more stop. We arrive at swimming school. Dudie has his lesson and I drift off whilst the other moms ooh and aah over Troll in the waiting area. Back in the car, I cover Troll with his warm blanket and tell Dudie to wrap himself with ALL his clothes. I put the aircon on full blast just so that I can stay awake whilst driving home.

I told Dude that if I am passed out by the time he gets home; it’s because I have had 25 days worth of crazy in one day.

Some days I have this all sorted and some days…well it’s all CRAY CRAY.

Spirited Mama

P.S. Dudie tells me, “Mom if you don’t want to smell like the baby’s vomit just wash with soap and water”. Me: Thanks my child, I’ll remember that…