Waiting for a crisis

Like the proverbial buses, some weeks seem to run almost to schedule while others are a traffic jam of catastrophe. Such has been this week. A veritable maelstrom of minor problems has converged on this week perhaps to test my resolve. First, there was the childcare problems of Monday and Tuesday, which was caused by an unprecedented medical emergency. Then daughter two fell sick. That would normally have been fine. However, on Wednesday, when I thought I could catch up with myself I emerged from the house for the school and nursery run to find a flat tyre. Lovely. I had several things lined up for that day, including a GP visit, which required transport. We live in the countryside. Buses don’t come that often, plus I don’t have the time to wait for them. Taking four children on a bus to the GP’s can take several hours if you factor in the waiting room experience plus the fact that they will all be starving after school.

Luckily, a neighbour was on hand. She mentioned in passing that it was daughter three’s sports day. This had entirely escaped my attention. I had bid daughter three goodbye with a note in her bag excusing her from swimming as she still had a cold. “It’s a good thing I don’t have PE today,” she said, “because I think I might be sick if I had to run.” The news that she might have to run a little bit more than normal was not what I wanted to hear. She no longer had a temperature, but she was feeling tired. She probably could have done with another day at home. Guilt.

I got home and rang the AA. A lovely man arrived and fixed the tyre. Things started looking up. The rains showered down and sports day was called off. My week suddenly brightened. However, on Thursday the clouds gathered again. The plumber was due to arrive to fix the kitchen tap. Only he couldn’t locate the water mains. Guilt. Then he couldn’t turn the water off as the tap has apparently locked shut. So we had to turn off the tap outside, annoying the next door neighbour who had her washing in. Meanwhile, the nursery rang to say the baby had a temperature of 102 degrees. Double guilt. He had been hot in the night, but seemed fine by morning and wolfed down his yoghurt while waving and saying ‘uh oh’ a lot. Just to add to the day’s joys, the computer kept freezing and the back-up laptop has had the Internet disabled by daughter two [something about an IP address being non-existent…]. 

One day I hope that I will actually get ahead of myself and not be spending all my life firefighting. I am beginning to envy my partner going out to the office. 

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• Mum On The Run