4 hours

That's how much time I had with no children today. I dropped the kids off at 8.30am, all of them, and headed back home. The plasterer arrived at 9.05am while I was vacuuming. I let him in, had a chat to the building blokes about the crack in the garage floor and about the price of fish generally, and then went back to it. By 10am I had vacuumed the house, cleaned both bathrooms and toilets, made the beds and done 2 loads of washing. Unbelievable. So then I decided to have a coffee and net surf for a while, as you do. Then the mailman arrived which resulted in my receiving a letter that I had been waiting for which necessitated my leaving immediately in order to get some things sorted out asap due to the contents of said letter, so I did that, then went to Bunnings, picked up some numbers for the letterbox (I have been numberless till now), perused the garden centre (oh how I could stay there forever and wish somebody would give me a very large giftcard) and left (several dollars poorer) a short while later armed with pink rosemary, thyme, coriander, sweet basil and parsley seedlings, as well as a wonderful selection of vegetable seeds.

Off to pick up master Angus, straight home as he decided that as soon as he sat in the car seat it was a perfect time to fill his pants, we got home in time to finish that off, change him, he decided sleep was on the cards, so I changed the washing over, did the dishes, folded some clothes, put on another load of washing, had another coffee, then realised I still needed some things for lunch tomorrow so worked out what it was I needed then realised I wasn't exactly sure if I did need that because I wasn't sure if the guests ate what I was making, so texted a while before thinking bugger it I'll call so I did and found out all was good, then Angus woke up, had a feed, I whacked him in the car and we went to the post office to post some things, then to the supermarket where I discovered what I had intended to make was not actually readily available so had to think of something else which I did and hoped it would be okay, got those things, and some soft drink, we left there and ended up at the daycare centre at 5. On the dot.

Not a wonderful pickup for miss Tabitha today. Tears straight away, and not even the where's Angus ruse worked. Nor did the where's Lexi suggestion. It was a "let's throw ourself on the ground and go limp" kind of day. So we dealt with that, went in to get Lexi to discover her elbow deep in red playdough (oh the joys) and grabbed bags signed books and off we went to the car, where some inconsiderate woman opened her door onto my door RIGHT there, as I was putting Angus in there. I walked around the other side and said "you do realise you have just opened your door onto mine and marked it don't you?". Oh sorry she says and then proceeds to jabber on to her carmate in some unknown language. The entire side of her car was destroyed, as though she had come to loggerheads with a fence and it had won. Not surprising really. Careless as. Not impressed either. Not at all.

So kids in car, Tabitha still sooking away, Lexi telling me she wanted her drink and her hands were dirty, Angus doing his little grunts and squeals, and me asking everyone how their day was. Asking what was for lunch brought the same answer as every day "rice". God knows why Lexi believes they have rice for lunch every day. Anyway, when I asked her what she wanted for dinner the answer was rice. Hmm. We did actually have that last night on request. So I said no, we'll have something different tonight, so she decided upon eggies. And so off we went and as we all yelled out "bye school" and turned the corner, Lexi said to me "I love you so much mummy". And I melted.

The rest of the evening was the rest of the evening. I'm still smiling from Lexi's words.

I had more I was going to say but to be honest with you the internet is doing my head in and my toes are cold and I really can't remember. I'm thinking I should probably go to sleep but the child in me says noooo stay uuuuup you know you want to, and it's winning. And it shouldn't be. Very frustrating. So I'm trying to visualise that lovely comfortable feeling of when you snuggle underneath the doona and close your eyes and feel sleep magically wave across you and transport you somewhere else, to a cloud, to a past event, to anything at all. I'm a 50/50 bet here. It's anyone's guess what I'll do next.

Gotta love living on the edge....