Survey highlights flexibility penalty for mums
Despite the post-Covid move to more flexible working, many mums are struggling to get the...read more
The nits are back and they’ve upped their game. The Derbac didn’t work, the expensive ‘natural’ [stinky] solution didn’t work. It’s back to the olde solution, the dreaded conditioner and combing combination. The problem is this: I have three daughters under 8. The oldest one, with luscious long hair, has escaped this time, but the younger ones have short hair that you can’t tie back. And the youngest two come into our bed still – the youngest at 4.45am – the worst possible time as she spends an hour getting comfortable, which usually involves lying across my chest and there I am pinned to the bed, my back in spasm, and there’s only an hour till I have to get up. It’s not worth the bother of trying to sleep. Plus the four year old bonkers one has been coming in at around 6, having wet the bed. Hurray!
So I am pinioned to the bed by the 2 year old and bashed from behind by the 4 year old. And you guessed it, I’ve got the nits too. Oh joy. My partner, as with all things, has avoided the problem by 1) having no hair and 2) being in Spain for the past week.
If I comb them all out on Sunday night surely the girls will be okay to go to school and nursery on Monday? Some days I envisage never ever being able to get to work what with chicken pox, teething, [endless] colds, car breakdowns, school events, etc, etc.
To get round this problem I have taken to using every spare moment to ‘do work’, even if this means thinking about work strategies at 4.45am while being accosted by the curly one. Surprisingly, I have had some of my best ideas at this time – it must be the back pain. Maybe you think best when in pain. The only trouble is, as I don’t have a pen to hand, I often promptly forget them. As is the way, my short-term memory is completely shot. It is having to remember so many short-term things that it has gone into overload and suffers regularly from systems failure. I can be on the computer and my partner can say don’t switch off the internet and though he says it several times and even comes and looks me in the eye and says it [he knows me so well], I still switch it off if I haven’t written it down on my hand first.
You might think from this that I am utterly incompetent and who would want to employ me, but actually I am surprisingly with it and being a mother has improved my organisational skills immensely. I have never ever been so organised nor so patient [except at the crunch time when herding the troops to school/nursery when I transform into a sergeant major]…as long as I have a notepad handy and a topped-up supply of caffeine.