The Complaint Hotline

theredish.com

I collect Smallest Boy from Montessori at 12pm.  Mister Husband is the best person in the world because he does the 1.30pm school pick up and I fetch the remaining two boys at 2.30pm.

From 9am till 12pm I enjoy complete and utter serenity both in my mind and house.  I love it.

From approximately 2.45pm, not so much.

As soon as they clap eyes on each other, the rowing begins.  The bickering.  The sniping.  The moaning.  The whinging.  The fighting.  The arguing.  The whole kit and caboodle.

It’s exhausting.  It’s stressful and I hate it.

I have told them as much.

I lost the plot this week – I am not proud but it happened – and I roared it at them. I told them I dreaded that time of day; that I hated them coming home from school.  That I find it all so upsetting and stressful and loud and horrible and it makes me want to cry and would they all just please stop!

They did.  

For a while. 

They fight over the Xbox.  If the tablet has been left at home, they fight over that.  They fight over couch space. 

They come to me with their complaints.  The big stuff, the small stuff, the ridiculous, the unbelievable, the just because I can stuff.

This evening I told them I was going to call my own mother and complain to her.  That I was going to give out to her the way they give out to me. 

“You have a mother?  But you are a mother!”

The phone conversation played out.

“It’s Friday and I’m bored.  Make it go away.”

“I want to go out but I can’t.  I’ve kids to mind.”

“It’s raining.  Will you make it stop by tomorrow?”

“Can you do the washing for me?  Please?  You never do it.  Never!”

“What’s going to be for dinner tomorrow?   Will I like it? How come you never make me what I like?”

“Why can’t I watch what I want to on the television?”

“Can I have a treat?  Why not?  It’s just not fair!”

They looked at me as if I had lost the plot.

“You sound silly.  If you ring nana and say all that stuff to her, she will just laugh at you.”

Ya think?  So how come I don’t find it funny when you boys say all of that stuff to me?  Well?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Anyone?

Sheesh!