Look, we’re all tired, I get it, but those of us with young kids are EXCEPTIONALLY tired.
I reckon that society as a whole should be giving us special dispensations, cutting us a bit of slack, as a kind of reward for resisting the urge to scream at people out of sheer exhaustion or refraining from beating the crap out of people’s car bonnets with car jack when they beep at us for not moving fast enough at traffic lights. But no, I was caught making a mildly illegal right-turn recently and my whining excuse “Please officer, I am so, so tired,’ did NOT go over well. Looks like we’ll all just have to struggle on through in our tired-rage-deleriums, consoling ourselves just with screaming at other humans from inside our cars with the windows rolled up.
10 major life blunders I’ve made while off my face on tiredness:
1. Not putting a bra on
This happens at least once a week. I rarely notice until I am meeting people in a vaguely professional capacity and feel that unmistakeable sensation of someone looking at your nipples.
2. Putting eye make-up on ONE eye only
It makes me look a bit like a sad puppy. Or that lad from A Clockwork Orange…
3. Leaving the bottle at home
NOOOOOOOOO. Occasionally the tiredness is so profound that it’s actually amazing that I have succeeded in putting on leggings prior to exiting the house and getting into the car with my child, never mind remembered all the myriad accouterments required for an infant. The forgetting of the bottle holds the same level of terror for me that discovering I am locked into a confined space with a vicious and occasionally malevolent wild animal would, which in a way I am.
4. Spending longer than three hours with my mother
I love my mother, she’s my best friend and I’d be lost without her help collecting my son from his minder when I’m working late and babysitting him when The Man and I need reminding that we are still in some vague way romantically linked. HOWEVER, my mother and I have a cut off period for how much (harmonious) time we can spend in each other’s company before one starts to feel a strong urge to kill the other. When I’m tired and weakened I forget this key rule.
5. Going to Tesco at 5.30 pm on a Friday night with a demented toddler in tow
Going to Tesco at 5.30 pm on a Friday night with a demented toddler in tow is a GREAT idea said NO ONE EVER.
6. Locking myself out of my house
That was the day I found out just how easy it is to break into my own home. Nothing says ‘off my face on tiredness’ quite like jimmying the living room window open in full view of the neighbours, pushing the toddler through and then climbing in yourself.
7. Leaving every imaginable item from takeaway coffee cups to baby bottles on the roof of the car before blithely driving off
It’s possible that I should not be operating a vehicle.
8. Attempting to go shopping with a demented toddler in tow
Even The Man looked sceptical as I headed off to town with that special I’m-going-to-Zara glint in my eye. His face said it all: “It’ll never work,” it seemed to say. It didn’t.
9. Giving The Child a piece of caramel square (or edible crack as it should be known) as a treat
I was tired and I just wanted some peace. The edible crack did NOT deliver the peace I’d hoped for, but instead sparked a sugar-induced toddler mania like nothing I’ve experienced before.
10. Getting into the cot with The Child
Surely we have all at one point or another gotten into the cot during a particularly impressive stand off that, around our house, we like to call the ‘there’s no f*cking way I’m going to sleep right now, lady and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it’? The getting in part was fine, and he did eventually calm down and even drifted off to sleep. It was only then that it dawned on me… how was I going to exit the cot without waking him up. The ULTIMATE parental catch 22. I lay there trapped in a prison of my own making… at least I had a beautiful baby to smell and stare at for the duration.
