Winging it

I’m having one of those days. One of those days where it is clear that my husband and I are just winging this whole parenting thing.

I don’t know how it happened, but my whole family slept in on a working

day. I opened my eyes and the clock said 7:30am EXACTLY. My husband was lying beside me, my dog was shaped like a cashew and my kid was on his side in his cot. I went around checking that they were all alive. They were.

I started running. I had to be at work by 8am (as if that has ever happened). I punched my husband in the back shouting ‘You’ve slept in, I’m going to be late,’ because everything is my husbands fault.

The house became really noisy: the kettle, the hot water system, Karl

Stefanovic.

My husband shouted: “Is that the garbage truck?” Stuff it, it was. I ran around the house grabbing all the rubbish, crusts, nappies and crap I could find while my husband wheeled out the bin in his weirdly crotchless, well-worn pjs - weirdly crotchless not in a sexy way, more of a farty, couch-friendly format.

We are busy, we are scrambled, we are hectic. I have wet hair and it’s cold. I’m busting, but I’m going to wait until I get to work to go to the toilet because then I can relish in my own private time while getting paid, without having to lie and play Tetris silently in the bathroom at home.

Like a well-oiled machine, I somehow manage to get the whole family out the door in half an hour; coffee, poos, showers, YouTube clip of the day, breakfast and all. Bloody legend.

I get the kid in the car, kiss my husband farewell and scratch my dog’s belly. I start the engine and take a peak at my family: My husband in his crotchless dacks and my dog trying to lick his bum. I smile. They wave.

I get to day care and notice that I have left my toast on the roof of the car and it’s still there. Bonus. I eat it. I go to get my kid out of the car and bloody hell, he’s still in his pajamas and dressing gown.

I look around at the well-groomed parents in their puffa vests and leisure gear. I step outside of myself and see this disheveled woman in a snot marked frock, eating toast off the roof of her car with one hand and trying to pull a stray hair out of her bra through the top of her dress with the other. Her hair is uncombed. She is still wearing maternity undies that should have been thrown out over a year ago and she is carrying a little boy in a dressing gown.

Then I see it. The Kanye to my Kim. A poster at the entrance to day care shouts at me: Pajama Day – 12 June.

Winged it. Again.

This post first appeared on Bubba West.