The Global Re-Set (For Grumpy Mums)

How can a modern mum like me avoid getting to the point of no return? You know… that moment when I lose my shit and roar my head off like a T-Rex so loudly that my child’s hair blows back from her bewildered face.

Is it possible to not get annoyed about every little thing and therefore circumvent irate run-ins and pointless conflict?

Is it possible to re-set this grumpy mum before she blows?

The problem with life and parenting is that there are so many annoying

things that happen throughout each day, of course there are good things too but for some reason those don’t stick. It’s the little annoyances and minuscule irritations that seem to cling to me, they linger like a bad smell just beneath the itchy wool of my cardigan.

For example - There is nothing I find more annoying than being served one piece of toast with two poached eggs. It makes me angry. I also don’t like it when a waiter passes hot coffee over my baby’s pram and there is nothing more frustrating than naughty, rebellious people that don’t put shopping trolley’s back.

There are some things that just get my goat.

I realise in the grand scheme of things that these harmless kinks of life are non-consequential, but I find myself having to take deep breaths in the Woolworths car park as I watch sneaky shoppers shove metal carts up against curbs or into empty spaces. I have to try and work through the grouchiness I feel and distract myself by leaning down into the glove compartment of my car and retrieving a cashew nut I left in there the week before. But, no matter how hard I try to get over it, the feeling stays, sitting on top of my skin like a pustulant spot.

There are other things too, motherhood annoyances. The constant search for shoes, the slowing down of pace when we’re in a hurry, the ‘this is disgusting’s’ when I serve something green and the cries of ‘I’m not tired’ when bags under eyes show otherwise.

All of these daily exasperations increase as the day wears on, like a thermometer that’s mercury is slowly rising…

It sits at cool when I open my eyes each morning, calm and collected. I lie in bed and listen to the rain tapping our metal roof, I try and enjoy a moment of peace before the barrage crushes the silence.

‘Muuuum, the baby’s is on the table and he has a skewer’.

From tranquility straight into an emergency situation. I run naked down the hall and lurch forward and grab the wooden skewer out from his hand just as he’s about to leap off onto some pillows below.

‘Now, who wants toast?’

‘I don’t like toast today’

‘Porridge?’

‘I want biscuits’

And so, it begins.

With every question and every refused offer the mercury rises. It starts at my toes and by then time we are hastily and overly aggressively putting on seatbelts, its right up to my shins.

Quarter of a tank of anger simmers in my socks.

But, after school drop and a hurried baby hand over, the main instigators are gone for the day.

Time to let other humdrum, mundane tasks annoy me for the next few hours;

I growl as I wait on the phone to Centrelink only to be cut off as they answer.

I curse as I wipe up toothpaste from around the bathroom sink.

I grumpily pull washing from the machine and shove it in the dryer.

I plump the cushions, take dolls out of the washing up bowl, hang damp towels on the line and pick up an assortment of toys, pasta spirals, pegs, beads, sweets, twigs and stickers from the floor so I can hoover.

As I do it, I’m not thinking,

‘Gosh, I love my children so much, look at all these things they play with, they’re so creative, I’m the luckiest woman alive’

What I am really thinking is how annoying it is that I have to clean up everybody else’s mess.

I wanted children and I love them more than anything in this world and the next, but some days I need something back, something to show I am appreciated, something that will re-set my mood.

Before I’ve even had time to sit down and have a nice cup of tea, it’s time for pick up.

They come out of class and wriggle their back packs over their shoulders and straight away ask,

‘What’s for dinner mum?’ Can we watch TV when we get home? I don’t want to do my homework!’

By the evening it’s all culminated. The little aggravations have added up and are all sitting on my shoulder blades making me feel stressed. The mercury has risen to its highest point and I’m ready to explode.

During bath time, tiredness, theirs and mine, means patience is something that has dribbled down the plughole along with the contents of a brand-new shampoo bottle. I come into the bathroom to find their game called ‘wave machine’ means the entire floor is flooded.

Grrrr.

I never thought I’d be one of those mums that shouts, I thought I’d be all hippie, all ACDC T-shirts, quinoa and amber necklaces. But as they refuse clean up the mess or go to bed, doors are slammed I hear my own voice boiling over.

It gurgles in my throat like a bubbling volcano.

And I unleash the beast and it’s not pretty.