I’m a bit broken this week. Lack of sleep (I thought we were past those days) and tediously long bedtime sequences have stretched me to the end of my tether. Or stretched my tether" What even is a tether" Whatever (tether), I honestly think that on a bad night our familial “bedtime routine” would be enough to make the toughest person on earth break down and cry. I don’t know who the toughest person on earth is – I like to think it’s maybe Bane from Batman, only because Tom Hardy is inside him (cue innuendo onslaught) – but whoever it is, they would not cope with a particularly testing evening of kid-settling chez moi.
There’s something rather soul-destoying about thinking you’re going to have a small slice of the evening all to yourself and then having it repeatedly ripped from your grasp. When you’re knackered after a full-on day of toddler-chasing, debris-clearing, dribble-wiping activity and you just want ten minutes to sit down on your own before it’s time for bed yourself, doing multiple trips up the stairs to quiet one screaming toddler and then a whole other set of journeys to make sure that the older one isn’t climbing the stuffed giraffe again sends you to the absolute limits of sanity. And I’m not moaning: just telling it how it is. It seems to be like this for most people, so I feel I can give you an honest portrayal. Those adverts where it’s all calm and peaceful, and...