The rain is pouring down outside on a gloomy, grey Sunday morning. The Roast is in the oven, albeit a bit behind schedule as usual, my daughter is tapping away on CBeebies website, my son is motor rallying, half naked, around the kitchen on the back of his black plastic motorbike and the baby is busy picking pieces of mud off a pair of small wellies thrown into the utility room. The perfect opportunity to leaf through the Sunday newspapers, or so I thought.
My favorite sections are lying in front of me – Property (to glance at my dream houses), Food and Drink (because I am always quite partial to both) and Travel (to look longingly at sun drenched beaches in far off places). However, I had barely finished the first sentence of “100 Most Luxurious Hotels in the World”, when I am interrupted by, “Mummy, I’m hungry. When’s lunch?” Followed by, “Mummy, can I have a biscuit? Mummy, how do I play this game? Mummy, the dog wants to go out, Mummy, the baby is climbing up the stairs, Mummy, how does God make loo paper?” So, the newspapers sit there, neatly folded and shortly find themselves at the bottom of the recycling bin, unread once again. Meanwhile, my husband quite calmly and happily reads the Business section of the newspaper every Sunday undisturbed by continuous questions and completely oblivious to three small childen frolicking around him.
I never thought I would find myself literally longing to read – whether it is a newspaper, a book, or even a magazine. Now, I sympathise with mothers who tell me they sometimes feel like their, “brains have gone to mush.” Mine definitely has and it is not surprising when my daily reading material does not now stretch beyond my daughter’s ‘Biff and Chip’ school books, or my son’s favourite ‘Three Little Pigs’. Occasionally, I decide to go to bed extra early and take a handful of reading material up with me. However, this usually results in reading a page, getting to the bottom and then realising I have not a clue what I have just read as I am mentally drawing up tomorrow’s ‘To Do’ list. Alternatively, I just fall asleep with the light on, with a book lying unopened beside me.
So congratulations to all those mothers who have managed to reach the end of this article without any interruptions.
