Not Waving but Drowning

I’ve felt like the proverbial swan today; calm and serene on the surface but paddling like crazy underwater.

This morning it appeared to the outside world that I was casually taking my three boys and the puppy for a pleasant walk to pass the time as my husband was away on a course, and as we wished the many passers by a polite, ‘Good morning’, some commented that I look like I’ve ‘got my hands full’.

Oh, how I laughed, as though I hadn’t noticed and it wasn’t a thought that had ever crossed my mind.  If only they knew…

My relaxed demeanour didn’t at all betray the fact that only minutes before leaving the house I had been screaming like a psychotic banshee, telling various members of our household to ‘Be quiet!’, ‘Get out!’, ‘Get off!’, ‘Get away!’ and ‘Stop arguing or I will bang your heads together!’

Those same people would never have guessed that whilst I attempted to get myself ready upstairs, I had been greeted by the gentle lilt of my six year old screeching, ‘MUUUUUUMMMMM!  ZACH’S EATING THE CAT BISCUITS!’

Although not a sentence you necessarily expect to hear at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning, I had answered calmly, ‘Well, could you take them off him then, please?’, vaguely wondering why it hadn’t occured to him to take this course of action instead of letting it continue and choosing to just report on it instead.

They wouldn’t have known that five minutes later I had heard, ‘MUUUUUMMMMM!  PEPPER’S WEED AND MAX HAS STOOD IN IT!’  But had I let this phase me?  No, I had not.  I had thought, ‘No problem.  I’m an adult.  I’m calm.  I’m in control and wine time’s earlier on a weekend’.  And so I had taken a couple of deep breaths, counted to ten and proceeded down the stairs to mop up before my youngest decided to draw patterns on the floor with it.

Those same passers by couldn’t have imagined that whilst trying to make myself look vaguely human my three year old had wailed, ‘MUUUUUMMMMM! JOSH HAS BANGED MY HEAD!’  At this point, however, they would have been disappointed to learn that my patience had worn thin so, forgetting my decorum, I had just screeched back, ‘WELL RUB IT BETTER, THEN!!!!’

And yet, when we finally walked out of that front door ten minutes later, we had looked to all intents and purposes like a harmonious family, spending quality time together whilst getting fresh air and exercise.

Lots of people stopped us on our jaunt, as often happens, to enquire about the breed of the puppy.  I answered sweetly and truthfully, ‘She’s a Sprollie, a Springer Spaniel crossed with a Border Collie’, as though we were the Waltons, desperately fighting the urge to say, ‘Well, her unofficial title is ‘B*****d Dog’ because she keeps using my house as a toilet and chews everything within a ten mile radius’, realising this may sound a little offhand to the civilised members of our community.

As we continued on our journey, numerous people commented that the puppy was very good off her lead.  Was she also good in the house? they wanted to know.  Should I tell them the truth, I wondered, that I had been on the verge of drop kicking her across the living room just before we left for chewing my friend’s lipstick that I was about to return to her?

But, ‘Oh, not too bad.  She’s getting better’, I instead replied breezily then cheerfully called, ‘Come on, boys!’ to ‘jolly’ them along.  ‘PEPPEEEERRR!  Come on, good girl!’ I singsonged to our five month old puppy that everyone finds so adorable, not at all sounding as though I was in fear of my face cracking if I stayed a moment longer.

We finally reached our street, crossed the threshold of our home and after removing coats and putting on the television I collapsed onto the settee, completely exhausted from the sheer effort of being nice.

So, next time you see me out with my family and I seem to greet you enthusiastically from across the street, just take a moment to remember that famous poem and just ask yourself, ‘Is she really waving, or is she actually signalling for help?’ 🙂