Today was one of those days that started badly, and got spectacularly worse - and it’s still only 11:20am.
At 4am I woke on the first cry from our youngest, jumped out of bed, hopped about clumsily putting underwear on (must remember to put robe back in bedroom), and found our youngest stood next to her bed for the second time in as many nights crying about having an accident.
Oh, what an accident. This was a “spreadeagle her in the bath with nothing on” accident. A “remove clothes with tongs” accident. The kind who’s smell stays in your nose for hours.
That was only the start.
After perhaps four hours sleep in total, and ten minutes before leaving the house for the commute to London, our eldest daughter appears in the kitchen. Similar accident. Knowing that she has been doing maths at school and having tearful tantrums about it we give her the benefit of the doubt (even though she answers “I did it on purpose” to questions about her accident - we’re not sure she knows what we meant). I nearly flipped out when she appeared ten minutes later in fresh pyjamas wanting to watch cartoons though. At 6:45am.
“If you’re not well enough to go to school, you’re not well enough to watch cartoons”
… immediate thud as she hits the floor, crying uncontrollably. I send her to her bedroom. I am a big meanie, aren’t I.
Following that, I leave for London. Half an hour into my journey W calls. She is trying not to throw up, has a nasty headache, and sounds tearful. She cannot get the only well child to school on her own - she doesn’t think the others will survive the school run in their unreliable state.
I make the calls, send the emails, get off the train at the next station, and start back towards home. An hour later I walk back into the house to find W asleep upstairs, and the kids playing happily in the middle of a scene of devestation.
Miraculously by 9:45am the lounge, playroom, bedrooms and kitchen were cleaned, tidied, the washing up done, and the washing machine and dryer started on the first of perhaps ten loads.
While running around like a lunatic this morning I recalled the meeting at the adoption panel - where the psychologist nodded quietly when I said about the children becoming our reason for keeping going. Today was the first real proof of that for me.