Tales from the school run

Why did no one tell me it was so hard?

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Oh hello, it's me. You didn't think I'd forgotten about you did you? I've thought of The Freelance Parent and my readers often over the last few months but haven't managed to actually sit down to write. Why? My son starting primary school has been a busy, overwhelming, tiring yet wonderful new chapter. There's been so many new people to meet, friends to be had, play dates to organise, and school runs to navigate. Oh those school runs with a four year old and toddler are just wonderful aren't they? (*said with a fixed pained grin and high-pitched voice). 

I never thought it possible to find something so challenging yet so inescapable every single morning. It's the bowel movements that cause the most problems. How can a toddler fill a nappy and a four-year-old need a ten-minute sit-down poo, seven minutes before the school bell is due to ring?

Well, turns out it is possible and it happened like clockwork for a good few weeks. I would pace outside of the bathroom door saying, 'have you nearly done yet?' over and over again, checking the clock and getting more and more agitated. 

I never understood the scenes in Motherland where Julia would squeal and shout at the top of her voice all before 8am. But let me tell you readers, I do now. 

“I’m sorry we're late again!” I'd say to the teaching assistant waiting at the classroom gate for the last few stragglers. “He keeps needing to poo just before we step out of the front door!”

“Oh well, at least we know he's been!” she'd reply cheerily. 

To make matters worse, our house is positioned on the corner of one of the main roads where many children and parents pass on the way to school. This means that many parents have witnessed me standing at my front gate, toddler in the pram, shouting, willing, or even yelling at my son to 'please get out of the sodding door and get to school!!!!!' All while he phaffs about collecting toys to take, or just point-blank refusing to go on that particular day. Sometimes he’d just take his shoes off and sit down again. I’ve often thought about just not going.

While he's dragged his heels alot, my son has also enjoyed a fair bit of school-run peacocking in the form of fancy headwear. On one very cold winter's morning (Gosh they were brutal weren't they?) he insisted on wearing a summer beach hat. On another occasion he wanted to wear sunglasses to be like his friend Bella who wears glasses. On another morning, he insisted on wearing a swimming hat. You know the type with the long flap at the back to protect their necks in the swimming pool? He wore it with great pride because 'he wanted it to be summer'. 

“Good morning!” said one of the mums outside of school. “I like your swimming hat. What will you be wearing tomorrow? Goggles and flippers?”

So all in all, It's been quite the experience but I think we may now have finally cracked it. Well not cracked it, but we're on time 80% of the time now (OK, 75%) which is a big improvement. And he's stopped digging out his holiday accessories, thank goodness. 

In addition to all of this morning melodrama, work has been busy and I've found having two children totally all encompassing - practically and emotionally. I used to always be busy on Twitter giving some hot-take or another, pitching first-person opinion pieces and writing this newsletter. But then I found that I came to a bit of a standstill. I no longer had any hot-takes or strong opinions on anything (well not thought through enough to write about, at least). I was at full capacity and felt like I had nothing more to give. No headspace so to speak.  

So, while my voice had momentarily gone into rest mode, I tried to find inspiration from others. And, the best way for any writer to feel inspired is to read so I've done a lot of that over the past few months. 

One of the writers that has left a lifelong impression on me is Clover Stroud. An author and mother of five, she writes in a memoir style documenting her life in a way that is so refreshingly honest, poetic and beautiful, that I found myself screen-shotting nearly every page of her book 'My Wild Sleepless Nights'.

I don't think that anyone has ever described all of the contradictory feelings of motherhood - boredom, anxiety, happiness and overwhelming feelings of love - in the way that Clover does. Her writing made me feel seen in a way I can't quite describe. It also made me want to become a better writer. 

As a freelance writer, I type thousands of words a month. I am always busy writing but when you write at speed and for money, it can sometimes be hard to find your way back to writing for joy. Don't get me wrong, I love writing for money. I pinch myself every day that I get to do this as a job. But when you can write to make people feel something, or show how you feel, it's totally different. 

So, I will leave you today with some of this shared inspiration by way of a short excerpt from My Wild Sleepless Nights. You can buy it here, too. 

“Having a child is like being given the most precious and beautiful thing in the entire world. It’s yours, absolutely, and to start with you must not let it out of your sight, except for short periods. It’s fragile and perfect and magic, but also heavy and difficult to care for. You must look after this wondrous thing, and nurture it all of the time, until you can spend longer and longer apart from it. And then one day you must give it away, out to the world. Having looked after it for a long time, the only certainty you have is that you will lose it. It won’t be yours any more. This is shocking. It’s also a relief”.

Clover Stroud, My Wild Sleepless Nights.

I will be back in a more reliable way at some point (probably over the summer) but while I work that out and get over my writer’s block, I’ll be thinking of those of you on the last few school runs of the summer. 

Until next time,

Cat x