Day from hell! Part 1

Yesterday was a shitty shitty day. Sorry Nan I know it was your birthday, but we will celebrate your birthday on Sunday. So I would love, Love, LOVE to just forget yesterday ever happened. But alas, vanquishing days isn’t yet in my repertoire so the next best thing is to share the tragedy so as it may become a comedy [for you].

My day started at 7.20am, pretty usual really, with the toddler crash tackling me in bed crying ‘Are you awake yet Mummy?’ 20 minutes later however, it was already the beginning of the end. The beginning of the end sounded something like this:

“Mummy, can I have a cookie please?” He had his head tilted to the side and the cutest smile he could muster.

“No, Cooper its waaaaaay too early for a cookie hunny.” At this stage I was almost dismissing the request – we’d all eat cookies before 8am if we could justify it, right?

“But Mummy, I said please!”

“Cooper, you know the rules no cookies before 10am” So shoot me – it’s a time I can live with. “Do you want me to set the alarm?” Yes, he enforces times to the minute.

“Daddy will give me a cookie. Can you bring Daddy home?”

Yes, straight from the horse’s mouth. Daddy said it was ok to eat cookies at breakfast time? Wouldn’t surprise me really, his father regularly ate cake for breakfast before Cooper began eating breakfast with him. But I let it slide.

BUT he just wouldn’t let go of that bloody cookie. He alternated between tantruming full on, negotiating with me “Can I have ice cream instead? Licorice – licorice isn’t a sweet!” and just acting out. An hour of this and you could have heard the keys being pounded from the other side of the house. Hubby got a rather strongly worded email that stopped shot of saying “YOU GAVE HIM A COOKIE AT BREAKFAST TIME? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!#! HE IS MAKING MY LIFE A LIVING HELL!”

When I got a random call from my parents I rolled my eyes at the timing. Until Mum told me she was returning Coopers call. The little bugger had called MY MUM to dob on me that I wasn’t giving him a Cookie. For Fucks sake! Mummy just needs a break!

I managed for another 45 minutes then I caved. I changed the digital clocks to read 10:00 at 9.45 and gave him the damned cookie. For 2 minutes I had pure, blissful silence, then: “Mummy, can I have another cookie please?” My face must have said it all because he didn’t wait for an answer he just began a chant of “I want another cookie!”

By this stage we should have already left for play group. I started with the easy bits and packed his lunch box then I started dressing him. Well, trying. I tried and I reasoned and I wrangled and I sighed and I screamed and I shrieked and I threatened and I gave up and then I threatened some more. I am actually quite chuffed that I didn’t smack (I’m don’t want to be that kind of Mum) and I didn’t lock him in his room.

We finally walked out of the door at 10.35. Yep 35 minutes late and its about a 10-15 minute walk (if you have legs about a foot long). I was facing the prospect of walking into a relatively new play group, with a toddler 45 min late, with no explanation other than ‘he wanted a cookie’ or more generically ‘we had a bad morning’. Instead I sat on my front fence, totally defeated, called my husband and cried. I recall blubbering something along the lines of ‘I don’t want to go, I’m the crappest Mum ever! You can’t make me go!”

The morning got worse. We went to the park. Cooper ran full pelt (which is pretty bloody fast) into the supports that hold up the play equipment. (For a bright kid he sometimes does some daft stuff.) He hit himself on the side of the head, staggered around unable to walk straight and fell face first onto a cross-bar, splitting both his lips. Screaming like his intestines were being removed, dripping blood from the mouth I carried the war wounded home. Standing at my front door, toddler still sobbing, I found my pockets empty.

Empty? How the hell are they empty? What the fuck did I do with the house keys? They weren’t in my bag, my pockets, the lunch box. Damn, damn, damn! Then I remembered the letterbox. I checked the mail on the way to the park and my house keys were still swinging pleasantly from the lock clearly marked number 2.

Stay tuned for Part 2. This day actually got worse.