Sometimes having four children is like being sentenced to hard labour for life. On those days when you are hung over or under the weather and all you want to do is curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a Desperate Housewives box set. When answering those incessant calls of 'Mummy, mummy, mummy', drives you to distraction, and when you wish that you had resisted those broody emotions and just said no to kids.
Every now and again I long to live in a house that is free from plastic clutter that is usually strategically placed to trip me up whilst carrying a full glass of juice to one of my sons. I long for the day when my time is my own, and not filled with colour coded chores relating to housework, after school clubs and homework deadlines.
What I really wish for is to be able to drive a car that couldn't double as a mini bus with enough seats to ferry a football team. I would like a dinky Fiat 500 that would squeeze into the tiniest parking spaces and would make me feel young and carefree every time I slipped behind the wheel. I would like it in hot pink, because I find being surrounded by boys all the time makes the urge to buy everything in pink is hard to resist.
But just when my desire to be child free threatens to overwhelm me my boys will pop my bubble of fantasy with a tiny barb of adorableness that leaves me feeling breathless with guilt at ever imagining my world could be better without them in it.
When Zach woke up screaming at far-too-early-o'clock on Sunday morning, I was ready to put him up for adoption until he sung ou
t 'Happy to you' to the tune of Happy Birthday the moment I picked him up. Then as we were all singing 'I do believe in fairies, I do, I do' from Peter Pan in response to Jacob, my eldest's first tooth coming out, Jonah joined in bouncing up and down singing 'I do, I do' in his lispy toddler voice.
As the boys piled on top of me on the sofa drowning me in cuddles, I realised that I would much rather be squashed beneath them than lazing around in front of a corny US sitcom anyway.
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