I choose not to write about being a mother terribly often, I don’t know why but I guess because I don’t believe that my child and our ongoing relationship is particularly interesting to most people, and also because I like to make my world bigger than just him and me occasionally. However today I make an exception because I am having a terrible day, in fact the whole week has been less than ideal – and it’s wearing me down in a big way. I know I am supposed to be the grown up, and the bigger person, but my dear toddler is so unbelievably wilful and stubborn at the moment that it is hard not to completely lose the plot. Everything I do is wrong. Everything I offer, from shoes to food to activities, is not what he wants, unless it is, and in which case you have to offer something else first for him to turn down so that he can say he wants the thing you offered in the first place. Everything is ‘I do it by myself’, even things he cannot possibly do, like climb into his car seat, or do the button up on his shorts, or use a knife to cut up his fruit.

I admit that he has cut three teeth in two weeks and the back molars are now on their way too, which may go a long way to explaining his grouchiness. I have also had visitors here and I’m tired from burning the candle at both ends, so my patience is not at its best. And I know alot of it is simply a)his age and b)just how little boys are. But today I am considering voting myself ‘World’s worst mother’ because I harbour a vague hope that if I do, I can take the rest of the afternoon off from endless negotiation, from using the phrases ‘please don’t do that’, ‘no’, and ‘because I asked you not to’ and from having to swallow my inner child who is screaming right back at my little stroppy cherub to just put the damn shoes on, stop moaning at me all the time, and realise that you have it pretty good actually, little fella.

I have to go and wake him up from his nap now, so I can only hope that he wakes in a better mood than he went to sleep in, and that instead of saying ‘no, mummy!’ and refusing to budge from the bed, he will smile and melt my heart and we can giggle at something wildly unamusing before sitting down in front of the TV and having a thoroughly decadent afternoon of slobbing instead of the age appropriate activities I’m no doubt supposed to be offering but haven’t prepared because I’m too traumatised and tired to think about. In the meantime I can only tell myself that this time will pass, and try to feel a little better for letting a little of it out to my invisible audience.

Exit Stage Left.