Home in Four Steps

The routine daily pick up round after work. Ten to three (o'clock), start with Leo.

Step one: Enter nursery and peep round the corner, check the monkey out. He might be listening to a story, singing a song, shouting excitedly over a match at sound memory, or be earning praise at tidy-up time. He finds mummy, comes running for a big hug and starts looking for his coat and hat, ready to shoot... except recently, where he's taken to giving me a big grin and staying exactly where he is. Monkey. The crying child is Milo, who's taken to howling as soon as he sees me. There are some likely explanations but they all sound like poor excuses.... Is it me?


Step 2: Coat, hat, waterbottle... all ready to go. "Mummz le's go. Where Tara?" (Gone are the days when he caled her Lala. Sad, so sad.) My, that's a tired child I'm picking up today. Every day. It what happens when little people ("I a little person!") don't go to sleep when asked to by their parents and refuse to sleep at nursery.


Step 3: Get him to sit down in car/pushchair and ply him with food. Gotta run. We have fifteen minutes for a way that takes, well, fifteen minutes.


Step 4: Ah! He's out. As discussed above, the side effects of poor sleeping habits. One down, one to go.


The other kid!
Step one: Collect from school gates (classroom door, to be precise) after having swept round the corner in the last of my fifteen minutes. Who's the last mum to pick up? Why, me. Of course.


Step 2: Question time. "Is anything special happening today?" "Do I have friends visiting?" "Did you bring me any treats?" On average, my answers are no, no, no and no. The last no to any other question she might ask. And I was the last mum... totally unsatisfactoty, all of it.


Step 3: Woo-hoo! We're walking a stretch of the way with a friend! Hand in hand, running off in search of puddles to jump in to - to maternal screams of NOTSOFASTGIIIIIRLS!!! from behind, and WHATDOYOUTHINKYOUREDOININGRUNNINGOFFLIKETHIS!!



Step 4: Aaaannd we're home. There are pictures of Tara diligently bent over some level 15 reading, but let's face the truth. TV. The unbearable attraction thereof. Some more Barbie, Barney, Tinkerbelle, a documentary or two about this animal or that, Tara takes them all. I fix up some snack, she helps herself to another apple, and it's two out of two kids out.


A little breather, a cup of tea, a sneaky biscuit from the secret cupboard. Then Leo wakes up tearfully and Tara is pried off the telly, and we're on to step one of The Evening Madness.