Just a little
insight into our day of relentless low-level stress...
Boo is in Year 6
now and has her SATs this week. So we
get up early because she wants to go to SATs breakfast club with her friends. This
ever-so-slightly-early start and change in routine makes little sister Miss 9
anxious and because she's already tired after a weekend of too much screen-time
and no sleep at Daddy's, she has one of those whines that lasts for about an
hour: ‘But I haaaaaaaate schooooooooool
thougggggggghhhhhhhh, whyyyyyyyyyyy do have to gooooooooooooooooooo????...’ etc.
Meanwhile, big
sister Ms 13 is having trouble getting ready for school on time again: her hair
(or something) won't go right and she's stressing about exams this week. ‘I don’t know what I’ve got, or when, and
nobody will tell me. I don’t know what
to do. I can’t go.’
I say, ‘Fine, just go in as soon as you're ready, I’ll
call them and say you’ll be in a bit late.
I have to take your sisters to school now.’ She goes in her bedroom and slams the
door. I know she is flopping onto her chair-bed
and looking at her phone, rather than getting ready, but right now I have to be
somewhere else.
But FFS, Boo isn't
ready. She has a tummy ache. I'm thinking nervous tummy, SATs related. I get the sulky-faced and whiney Miss 9
loaded up for school with folder and lunchbox, and just at that moment, Boo
throws up HER ENTIRE BREAKFAST, luckily for me, into the kitchen sink. Then she
immediately says she feels absolutely fine and wants to go and do her test. I turn on the taps, gipping at the smell of
milky Shreddies vom, and try not to see it blocking up the plughole.
I ring school, but
there’s no answer, so we go there in the car, sick bowl
and wipes in hand. I need to ask them
what they want us to do- kids aren’t supposed to be in school for 48 hours
after they’ve puked, just in case it’s a bug, but if a child who has been
entered for SATs doesn’t then complete the test, it will bring the scores down
for the entire year group, so they really won’t want her to miss it.
At school, news of our puker sends
more than one slightly stressed-out (SATs related!) member of staff into a bit
of a flap – nobody seems sure what we should do, and we are referred to the executive
head, who makes the executive decision to send Boo home, see how she fares, and
if ok bring her back at 10.30am for the test, which she will do in isolation
(which she would have done anyway, since she is allowed 11 minutes extra time-
WOO!- and will be completing her tests in a more relaxed environment with her
support assistant, due to her autism.
See- there are perks.) She will
then need to be collected by me after the test and brought home.
At the news that Boo is allowed to
go home for a little while, Miss 9 becomes even more disgruntled. ‘It’s
not faaaaaaiiiiiir! How come SHEEEE gets
to go home and IIIIII have to go to SCHOOOOOOOOOL?’ Boo,
meanwhile is looking at me with daggers and moaning, ‘Awww’ in a very loud and sulky voice, because she wanted to be at school eating toast
with her buddies. Both girls hate
me. It is, after all, all my fault, as
usual. I can do without this this
morning. Seriously.
I drive us all halfway home, when
I realise that I’ve forgotten to call Ms 13’s school to tell them she’ll be
late. I pull over and ring them, it’s a
quick call without the need for lots of explanation – the attendance officer
knows my voice all too well and is well-versed in the trials and tribulations
of getting my first-born to school on time.
Then I look at my watch and notice that there is no point going home now
as it’s time for Miss 9 to be in school, so I pull a Uey? U-ie? Yooey? and head back to the primary school, lock Boo and
her sickbowl in the car, run round to the school gates with Miss 9, back to the car, and home without further
incident. I walk in to find Ms 13
messing on her phone and eating crisps, already over half an hour late for
school.
I take the phone, and eat the
crisps. It is 9 am.
There was more. So much more.
Backwards and forwards in the car to the high school, then the primary
school. Sink unblocking. A lost
flip-flop. Back to the primary school for Boo.
A headache. Three loads of
laundry. I want chocolate and the Co-op
is shut for a month. I’m supposed to be
working on a presentation for college that was actually due last Thursday. For lunch I’m eating out-of-date pasta salad,
which I bought especially for my fussy-eating turned vegetarian turned vegan 13
year old last Tuesday, and she then ate nothing but crisps all week leaving me
with a load of extortionately priced, healthy and beautiful deli items going
off quietly in the fridge, which I refuse to throw away. If I’m sick, I should make her clean it
up. My cat thinks it’s teatime and is
meowing at me needily, guilt tripping me through the window.
I now have approximately 90
minutes to do a day’s work before the afternoon school run.
This is my life.
