“Are we going to be late?” says my daughter as I run back into the house turning off the alarm for the third time to collect the water bottles from the fridge. I glance at my watch. 8.34am – four minutes behind my rigid schedule which could mean parking at least another four cars away from the school gates.
Back in the car with four children belted into an assortment of car seats I run through the checklist. Book bags, lunch boxes, jumpers, coats, wellies, homework, money for school trip and Show and Tell. A quick time check tells me I am now ten minutes behind schedule. As we drive out of the gates my son suddenly shrieks, “I’ve forgotten my glasses.” We reverse back up the drive and I run back indoors. I sprint madly around the house up and down stairs desperately searching for the glasses. Finally, I find them wedged down the side of a sofa cushion. I run back to the car gleefully waving the glasses in the air.
We arrive at school to find a long trail of cars parked up the road. The children shriek for me to open their doors and off they run towards the school gates. I am left with The Baby and a whole mass of bags and coats lying abandoned on the floor of the car. I spend the next few moments wrestling with the pram, cursing the manufacturer for not making the opening mechanism work smoothly for mothers under pressure. The Baby looks up at me smiling clearly amused by his red-faced mother. He lies in the pram surrounded by book bags something he has become accustomed to over the weeks.
I dash into the school playground madly pushing the pram around distributing everything. I glance at the impeccably made-up mothers standing calmly beside their groomed children. Tomorrow I must set my alarm clock earlier to allow for the lost glasses and a touch of mascara. I quickly comb my daughter’s hair with my fingers and rummage around my handbag for a random hairclip. The whistle blows and they all run in leaving a shell shocked, bedraggled mother behind them. I glance at my watch. 9am and I am frazzled.
