Soft Play Trauma.

Yes, I really do mean trauma, because let’s face it, soft play is hell on earth. It’s also the easiest way to have a cup of tea with my friends without being constantly harassed by the kids proclaiming that they are “bored”. Have you ever seen the rules in a soft play area? My local one states that children must not play with fire in the play area. That should indicate how hellish it is. There’s a rule about fire.

I love soft play, whoever thought of it should be rewarded richly, however I also hate it and here is why.

You arrive, juggling the kids to read a sign on the door saying you must pay for entry before entering the area. So off you go, to the till, balance a tray on your head to hold the vastly overpriced food and drinks you are about to buy (how are you charging me so much for a fruit shoot when I could buy four for a quid in Co-op?) During this you must also try and stop the kids from running in without you before they have the all-important wristband.

The wristband that grants entry that you need to take out a loan in order to afford, this is immediately placed upon the child’s wrist and about five minutes later they will be screaming trying to pull it off, despite warnings that they will have to leave the soft play if they do.

You are in! You sit down with your overpriced food and drink and immediately leap back up, because the kids have gone sailing in with their shoes still on. You spend ten minutes chasing them back out in order to remove their shoes. They pull off their socks. You spend five minutes convincing them they HAVE to wear socks because soft play is actually gross and you aren’t paying a fiver to remove the verruca’s they will get.

You notice the soft play smells a little bit like sick and old chips.

Off they go, you sit with your friend and start a conversation that is likely based around the kids you came here to be free of, except one of them is now stuck in the ball pit and needs rescuing before they are lost in the balls forever. You head in, realise you have shoes on, take shoes off, realise you have no socks on, put shoes back on and ignore dirty looks from other parents as you wade in and save drowning child.

Child is free of ball pit. Child jumps straight back into ball pit.

You go back to your tea. It’s still sort of warm so you drop some more sugar in and sit back down. Conversation about how tired you are begins.

Child is once again wailing. They’ve got in a fight with another child. Both children are crying. You cross your fingers that your child wasn’t the instigator and go over to assess the damage. Your child is whinging but is clearly unharmed. Other child is nursing a red mark and wailing incoherently whilst his Mum says things like “Oh it’s ok, it happens to us all” but her eyes say something totally different and she clearly wants to throttle you and your demon child.

Play is resumed with the promise that no more fights will occur.

Another fight immediately occurs.

You sit down again, your tea is stone cold and the chips you ordered arrived whilst you were breaking up numerous fights. Also cold.

Children come over for nourishment and eat overpriced snacks, drink overpriced drinks and finish off your chips.

You go to the toilet entrusting ALL the children with friend whilst she stares at her phone wishing she was in bed.

You come back and ALL the kids need the loo now, so off you go again. Reaching the loo and realizing none of them have shoes on, so you carry the children one by one that weigh the same as baby elephant to the loo then the sink and so on.

Back to the play! You sit and manage an actual ten minute conversation with friend about the kids and you finally start to move on to discuss important things like politics when…

One of the kids has returned, they’ve been in yet another fight and this time, they are the injured party. So off you go to make amends whilst trying to not do the angry “my poor child” eyes.

You say “Oh it’s okay my kid whacked another one earlier, ha ha ha” and immediately regret it because now the parent is looking at you like maybe your demon started it and not theirs.

It doesn’t matter any anymore because you have to go dive back into the play because your other child is climbing up the slide, despite the rules clearly saying not too and there’s a queue of kids at the top getting more and more pissed off.

A kid decides to go down anyway whilst you are in the middle of removing yours and it’s a big crash. Other parents stare, wondering who you are and when you will leave.

You sit back down, a child that doesn’t belong to you wanders over to mooch what food you have, whilst trying to locate a parent for the child you notice your own has joined another family and is wolfing down their mini cheddars.

You throw them back into the ball pit for some quiet but suddenly, now it’s convenient, they’ve learnt to escape.

You say “five more minutes” but by the time you’ve dragged them all out and put their shoes back on it’s actually been thirty, one is missing a sock and the other has lost a hair clip and it’s the END OF THE WORLD.

You drag them out, flustered, more tired than when you arrived, promise friend that next time, you will actually talk and see each other properly.

Rinse and repeat.

To the girl that taught me to be a Mum, Evelyn.

To the girl who taught me how to be a Mum, Evelyn.

Happy birthday my lovely girl. You arrived in my life six years ago, after a hellish pregnancy and one long, painful night and a full hour of pushing, there you were, 5lb 9oz of you and you were a dream. Sometimes I still look at you now and see the tiny little squidgy baby that you were, a baby that rarely cried, a baby that slept through the night at 12 weeks, a baby that settled in her own room on the first night, a baby that didn’t need to be rocked often or held constantly. You were just you, this calmly and quietly confident baby that knew everything was okay. Basically a mini version of the girl you are today.

You are the one who has taught me the most about being a Mum, if I make a mistake, it is usually with you, because all the firsts, they happen with you. If I get something wrong, it’s usually with you and some days you test me with your temper, your attitude and your stubbornness and from you I’m learning how to deal with all of that and you don’t hold any of it against me. You forgive me within seconds, you love unconditionally, and you comfort me sometimes when I’ve screwed up.

You are also the kid with the health problems and it never fazes you and because of that, it mostly, doesn’t faze me. Yes, I still lie awake and night and imagine the worst, of course I do, you are my baby always, but when we sit in hospital appointments and at the Drs and discuss what’s going on with you and treatments and future plans I take my lead from you, I ask questions I know you want the answers to, I take your happy, funny approach and roll with it and then we get a happy meal on the way home because that’s how you like it. (No milkshakes though, because they make you so ill) When you need to be sick you just grab a bowl or go to the loo and do it, no crying, no upset, just "Mummy i've been sick" and its over with, back to normal routine. You astound me, everyday with your chilled, calm approach to life. 

When we had you we never talked about the time-frame of having another baby but a succession of siblings have arrived and I know they drive you nuts (by “they” I mean Ivy, the kid can annoy you like no other) but I hope you know that they are probably the best gift we could ever of given you. Ivy is  your best friend, you are lost when the other isn’t around, you don’t sleep properly if one is missing, you know each other better than Daddy and I know you and even though I shout and tell you off, listening to you mess around and be silly together makes me smile and I know as far as Ivy goes you probably sometimes get the short end of the stick, mostly because Ivy is a bloody fearless warrior and Satan himself would send her back but you take it in your stride and I thank you for that, you make my days so much easier with your grace. You are the best big sister to Arlo and Penelope, you are rough and tumble with Arlo making him squeal and you are gentle and careful with Penelope, you understand the difference between them.

And that leads me to this, I am so proud of you my girl, for so many things. You are so beautiful, with your blonde hair and your long legs, you are totally different to your siblings, sometimes I look at you and It stops me how pretty and beautiful you are but you are also so much more than that, you are funny, you have a wicked sense of humor, you make everyone laugh. You are kind and considerate to everyone around you. You are sensitive to people’s feelings and to how people make you feel. You are such a worrier, you fret and panic about the smallest of things. You are meticulous in your approach to some tasks, you are a leader when you want to be but you will follow when the time is right, you have a quiet confidence and you are quietly smashing it at school. You are a thousand magical things and you have given me over 2 thousand magical days and I would have you a thousand times over. 

<3

Half Term Hell.

On the last day of term I can very clearly picture myself saying the following words; "I am sooooo glad the kids are off for two weeks! Quality time together, lots of fun outings and they really need a break from school".

They were the words of an absolute fool, because as it turns out, a weekend was enough for my beloved girls, who were super burnt out on phonics, to recover. That first weekend was lovely, the weather was sunny, we rambled around the nature reserve, duck pond, park, we got ice-creams and all in all, had a great time! Of course we did, Daddy was home.

It has gone slightly downhill from there,

1.  During half term the kids bodies change vastly, they can no longer cope with 3 meals, 3 snacks and two desserts a day. No. They must be fed every twenty minutes without fail or they will ACTUALLY DIE. You will know when they need feeding, they will whine "I'm hungry" over and over whilst you forget to feed yourself because you are so busy feeding them. Sometimes, they will say this whilst eating and at this point, you must immediately supply them with EVEN MORE FOOD. You should probably bare in mind that your shopping bill will vastly increase and you will no longer be able to walk past a shop without ducking inside to find whatever they are craving at that moment.
2. They will forget all manners and decorum whenever you set foot in public. Being out and about will instantly become a cue to act completely feral and it will be difficult to tell whether you have taken out your children or wild animals.
3. You can plan all the fabulous activities and spend all the money you like, but two minutes after said activities end they will forget about that fun and be absolutely bored. There is no "sitting quietly having a chill" there is "constant activity's" and "boredom" 
4. By week two a midday nap for your children probably sounds like a fantastic idea. ABORT THIS IDEA, I repeat, ABORT IT. You will seriously regret it when they wake up an hour later with the most energy you have ever seen in your life and when that continues, long past bedtime. 
5. You will seriously wonder about the stability of your floorboards upstairs whenever the kids are up there because it sounds A LOT like a herd of elephants is traipsing through. 
6. Your kids will forget the most basic of life skills. Getting dressed? A complete mystery, this five minute task now takes an hour and a lot of screaming. Flushing the toilet? Why would they flush the toilet, its much more fun to leave it to hang around waiting for the next time you need a wee and then have to bleach everything and spray air-freshener all over.
7. Every-time you need a wee the kids will immediately bang on the door with absolute desperation because they are about to wee themselves.
8. Or because they need to be sick because they ate 4 Easter Eggs, after crying about how much they hate chocolate and hanging over a sick bowl for half an hour, they will return to their 5th egg, because Dad said it was cool to eat chocolate all day.  
9. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. The washing machine will break and flood the kitchen, you will drop lucozade all over your phone and no longer be able to hear anyone, you will have ten thousand awful tasks and delivery's land on the same day etc. 
10. You will be the worst Mum ever because you won't let the kids jump off the bunk bed because you don't want to go to A&E again. 

Stay strong Mummas, only 3 days until they go back to school and you will forget the horror that is half term and once again say things like "Oh I can't wait for half term"