Tea is my typewriter

Here is the quickest way to make a cup of tea.

First of all, only boil what water you need. About a year ago I had the presence of mind to take a little gold star from my daughter’s potty training reward chart and stick it on the window of the kettle to indicate the right amount. More water takes longer, and can make the difference between getting your water boiled and getting interrupted. Hang about too long and someone might find out you’re in the kitchen, and before you know it, you’re making snacks for everyone or getting the sippy cups out, and your tea never gets made. Get in and out as quick as you can.

Second, keep your tea bags and mugs in plain sight. This is because cupboards contain distractions. These may be biscuits or sticky jars or things needing refilled or cleaned out, and these are distractions which exist to give you guilt. You try to alleviate it by cleaning or tidying, and then your tea never gets made. 

Next, do not be precious about your choice of mug. There’s no room to be emotional, or tantrum like a toddler when you get the pink mug but you wanted the purple one. Set them a good example by taking what you get and being grateful.

And finally – trigger warning – you’ve got to get the milk in while the teabag is still in there. I know it doesn’t taste as good, but the perfect taste is not a luxury you can have with three children under five and a husband who works full time. Once you’ve done the first stir, get the milk in and then squeeze the bag till the colour is okay, and get it out. And that’s your tea.

It’s a far cry from a Japanese tea ceremony but it’s good enough. I find that aiming for good enough is suffice to keep everyone alive.

Today I am feeling ambitious. I want to sit down with my tea. I’ve got a dream of getting to the window seat in the bedroom. I would love to sit there, all alone, for as long as it takes to drink my tea. While this is not a lot to ask, it is also like hoping for a miracle. 

I am so tired. I’ve been up since 5am, changed 15 nappies and prepared twelve meals in the last 11 hours, five of them using only my own body. My hair is unbrushed, as are my teeth. I would love a seat. My legs are heavy. When I went to the loo after lunch I realised it was the first time I’d sat down today. I can feel my shoulders rounding and if I stopped trying to stand up straight, my body would roll into a ball like a threatened armadillo. My head is full of fog, so I never seem to reach any conclusions. Instead my thoughts get lost and stuck. And there’s something in the back of my head that needs my attention, hovering like a dark cloud. 

So I set my sights high. I pick up the pink mug of hot tea, and start out for the bedroom.

Leaving the kitchen I have to walk through the dining room. Don’t look up, Jenny, I tell myself. Avoid eye contact with the adversary at all costs. Distraction is the enemy and this particular enemy goes by the name of mess. 

But it’s impossible. Something about this level of chaos is like a car crash. I just can’t look away from it, even if it will give me nightmares.

The unplanned mural on the wall has grown today. The latest additions are orange, and they’ve been helpfully spread into smears by hands which clearly had already worked in a variety of colours from the preschooler’s pallette. At least they don’t extend to further than three feet up the wall.

The carpet is similarly decorated. Once it was grey, a smart, neutral, grown-up grey. Now it boasts a wide range of paint stains, old and new. The table is a riot of colour, brushes, puddles and papers. Two little Jackson Pollocks had a wonderful twenty minutes here, thoroughly engaged with the creative process while the baby also committed to paper her first hand prints. Then the middle one got bored and led the revolution to the toy box, taking his painty hands with him. I did not pause to tidy up or insist on hand washing. I just followed them. Perhaps this is because I am a playful, conscientious mother who realises the importance of child-led play, or perhaps it was an exercise in damage limitation. I can’t remember exactly what I thought, because I’m so tired.

I look at the chaos and know I will have to tidy it before any of us eat tonight. My weary body slackens further still and my shoulders droop even more. The thought of putting it all away makes me want to cry. I shove the thought to the back of my mind, to join the other dark clouds waiting for me later.

My reflections distract me and in a rookie mistake, I stand on a toy – a clear plastic tube filled with brightly coloured beads, topped with the grinning face of a bear. My ankle turns and I wobble. The balls cascade noisily inside the tube, exactly as they are supposed to do, and the bear smirks accusingly. Oh Jenny, how could you leave me lying on the floor like this? I’m obviously a trip hazard, and you need to set a good example to your children in how to look after their toys. You failed again, Jenny.

Fuck you, bear, I mutter. You made me spill my tea. A good slosh of my precious drink is now soaking into the carpet. This is yet another stain that isn’t going to get cleaned up. I kick the bear under the sideboard and I carry on.

Stepping over a pair of pants and pushing a small green train up an imaginary siding under the radiator with my slippered toe, I make it to the hall. The pinboard on the wall is overloaded with notes and letters and things a good mother is supposed to keep up with. The baby has her jags tomorrow, and on the way I need to remember to drop off the fees for playgroup. Then there’s the school registration form, and a reminder that it was my brother’s birthday yesterday, but I fell asleep before I could phone him. I realise foggily that these are more distractions, and really, I need to remember my current mission and stay focussed.

It would only be the worst of mothers, I reason, who would not check on their children before having a tea break. I’ll peek, I tell myself, just long enough to see that nobody is bleeding, and I’ll be silent so they don’t notice me. I move towards the living room door where the only noises are the electronic lullaby of the the baby’s swing chair and the familiar sound of CBeebies. I allow myself the luxury of hoping against hope that my older daughter and son are absorbing nutritious, educational content adeptly delivered by the BBC. I stick my head round the door trying not to be seen. Being seen leads to being wanted, and being wanted leads to competitive siblings, and competitive siblings always lead to tears, usually from at least three of us. So it’s best to stay out of sight wherever possible.

It is too late when I realise that CBeebies is going unwatched. My sluggish brain registers the sleeping baby and begins to wonder, where are the other – 

“MUUUM-MAAAAAAAAAY!”

I am ambushed. One child leaps from the sofa, the other from a stack of pillows behind the door. They land heavily on the floor, screaming and laughing at the trick they’ve been waiting to play on me.

Somehow I avoid swearing, but I find myself joining in with the screams. As my body reacts to the fright, I feel a hot slosh of tea scald my hand and soak into my jeans. Bugger.

“Mummy, Mummy, we were waiting for you! We were HIDING, mummy! We were so quiet, weren’t we Mummy? Did you hear us Mummy?”

Being awake regularly for 20 hours out of every 24 does things to your nerves. I’m always close to the edge and I know it. Getting a fright, or a dirty look from an old lady in the supermarket when I appease my children with grapes I haven’t yet paid for, or when I drop my car keys or I can’t get the pram to fold up, I know these things can lead me to over react. Sometimes it’s a fury I can hardly control. Sometimes it’s a flood of tears. It’s not a great place to be, and a lack of caffeine doesn’t help.

I take a deep breath and with all my will power, I count backwards from 10 while they laugh and babble at me. At zero, I manage to fix my face into a smile. I tell them how very clever they are. Did they both stack up those cushions? That is amazing! And yes, mummy did get a fright and yes, you were as quiet as little mice! And would you look at that, isn’t that CBeebies Chris about to sing Row Row Row Your Boat?

I know that CBeebies Chris is about to sing Row Row Row Your Boat, because I have seen CBeebies Chris sing Row Row Row Your Boat at least 45 times. But mercifully their little brains love repetition more than mine does, and they amble to the screen and sit down far too close to it, to watch and join in.

If I ever meet CBeebies Chris, I will buy him a cup of tea to say thank you. And while he drinks it, I will have a little nap while he looks after my children. 

And still the baby sleeps, and gratitude and love swell up inside me as fast as the rage or the tears can, and my heart feels ready to burst. I look at the three of them and notice how easy and full of love this can be in the moments when they are all either asleep or sitting still quietly.

I look at my mug. It’s half empty. I’ve lost 50% of my tea so far and I’m not yet at the window seat. But I may only have the length of Row Row Row Your Boat before I am disturbed, and I know from experience that Chris is only going to do five verses. I plough on.

I am tantalisingly close to the bedroom and I can see the bed is not made. I remember that this is because all five of us slept in there last night, and I crept out at sunrise with the middle one when he woke up, and I haven’t been back in since. At least, I think that was this morning. Maybe that was yesterday. It’s not clear. Most likely the bed won’t get made until just before I get back into it tonight, when I’ll aim for a solid 90 minutes before the baby wakes up for a feed. 

There is another version of me who would be horrified at this. That Jenny is a woman who is compelled to make her bed as soon as she gets up, and changes the sheets every week – a habit which I now consider an unnecessary decadence, like nice underwear or sitting down to eat. That Jenny does not smell of old milk or nappies or poo, and she gets showered and dressed every single day. I think she smells like flowers, or Chanel No 5, and she probably gets 8 hours sleep every night. I miss her and hate her all at once. 

I can see the window seat now. There are some paperback books there. I stopped going to book group after the third time I failed to even buy the book, never mind read it. I was fed up with trying to figure out whether people were looking at me with sympathy or pity. I don’t like either of them so I never went back.

From the pocket of my jeans my phone rings. My heart sinks. I’ll call them back later, I think, but I need to make it stop before the children hear. But my phone is in my right hand pocket, and my right hand is holding my tea, so I try to reach my pocket with my left hand and I bump my arm and another slosh of tea leaves the mug and hits the wooden floor with a depressingly loud splash.

It’s Mark. When I don’t answer he gets worried. So I answer. 

“Hey love,” he says warmly, “How’s your day?”

I debate how honest to be with my answer. Do I confess to the painting debacle, the crisp fight that lunch turned into, and admit that even though it’s a beautiful sunny day, we haven’t been outside? Does he need to know that I’m still in my pyjamas under my jeans, and the baby is still in hers too? 

A chaos of questions runs through my head, and it feels like every bit as big a car crash as the dining room of disaster. Will Mark be a better father if he knows what a shitshow his wife runs while he’s at work? Or instead will it in fact give him license to make less of an effort? If I tell him it’s been a shit day, will he come home and help – in which case will he resent it, or be happy to be with the children? If he comes home and makes it look easy, will I feel worse than ever about my own shitty parenting? Or if he can’t come home, will he feel bad because there’s nothing he can do to help? 

There is no way to win, I think, because I’ve already lost.

Because Mark, before he was my husband, was my best friend, and we did everything together. And now that we don’t do everything together and our days are wildly different, I really, really don’t want him to stop loving me. And if he sees what a shit mum I am, he will stop loving me.

All these thoughts blur into a big messy overwhelming fug in my head and tears burn my eyes. All I can do is give him my default answer, the one I’ve been giving for the last two years.

“Yeah, not too bad! Chaos as usual, you know how it is. What’s up?”

But today, he persists. Fuck.

“Are you doing okay? You sound a bit fragile.”

I’m not strong enough to be challenged like this. Not with kindness. 

There is my wonderful, perceptive, considerate best friend, looking out for me like he always did. I can’t cope with it. Am I doing okay, Mark? I truly, more than anything, want to be doing okay. I want to be a good mum and enjoy my children. But it’s so hard. 

If I can’t be okay, I will settle for Mark thinking that I’m doing okay. 

I fake it till I make it. I go to the happy place. I think of the sleeping baby and the other two watching CBeebies. I’ve kept them all alive for another day. We have eaten. I have the remains of a cup of tea. So perhaps I am good enough. Perhaps I’ve done enough for it to not be a lie when I say, as I do, “I’m doing okay.”

My children have taught me about the art of misdirection. I try it out now. I ask him, “Are you doing okay, babe?”

“I am, love, I’m fine.” There’s no hesitation. He really is okay. At his desk, in a suit, speaking to grown ups, catching the bus, buying his lunch, eating it alone, getting a takeaway coffee. He’s doing okay.

And the misdirection works. He rolls with it. I have thrown him off the scent of my weakness. My prickly tears fade away and the questions go back in the box for another time. It’s the tidiest thing I’ve done all day. 

“Listen, I’m sorry, Jeff’s just called a late meeting. Just have dinner without me, and I’ll be back for bath time. I’m really sorry.”

“Sure, no problem”. Now all I want is for him to be off the phone before the last of my tea is cold. “Gotta go. Love you. See you later.”

“Love you. Bye.”

I throw my phone on to the unmade bed.

I have made my tea. I have crossed the house and arrived at my destination. It looks very much like I might have succeeded in my quest, and I have a shimmer of pride. I scoot my bum onto the window seat and swing my legs up, feeling a wonderful stretch in my lower back, which I didn’t even realise was aching, and a release in my legs and feet as I finally take the weight off them. It’s absolutely delicious. This is wonderful. 

I lean my head back onto the wall, my shoulder on the glass pane. I raise my mug to my mouth and tip it up. When I eventually taste the tea, it is wonderful. It’s still slightly warm. It lights up my mouth, and happiness and comfort flood in. I feel my shoulders and tummy relax as I swallow. It’s familiar and soothing and so very good. This moment is my happy place, an island of Jenny in a sea of family.

Now I can let my brain go to the task in hand. Like another car crash, I don’t want to look but I can’t ignore it. I close my eyes and force myself back to Saturday morning.  That was an island of Jenny too. I actually made it to the shower while Mark played with the children. I washed my hair. I even sang as the water ran over my stiff, tired body – Elbow’s“One Day Like This”, because when you have a high point, you can forget the lows.  I felt warm and soothed and indulgent, being all alone like this. 

And then it went wrong. As I washed my body I stopped in my tracks when my hand ran over the lump in my breast. For a moment I pretended it was my imagination and tried to focus on the hot water, the smell of the shower gel, but it was ruined. There it was, firm and round and the size of my thumb nail.

Now, I need a plan. I need to control the panic that has been rising in me all week, and make a plan. Do I tell Mark? Do I google it? Do I call for a GP appointment, and if I do, is it an emergency appointment? Should I mention it when the baby gets her jabs? If I have to go to the GP, all four of us have to go, and my children are surprisingly good listeners when you don’t want them to be. And maybe it’ll disappear on its own, maybe it’s nothing, in which case I’m just wasting my time.

My head is full of chaos again, more questions I don’t have the focus to answer. The tiredness that fogs my thoughts prevents me from getting anywhere close to a plan. The tea is finished and life is cold and hard again. This requires clarity that I know I don’t have, and I don’t think I’ve had for two years.

My thoughts are catapulted away by a thump and a crash and a cry from the living room. And suddenly my eyes are open and I’m on my feet again and back to my life.