I have been going to Mother’s Group. Yes. Twice. It is less freaky, and more bearable than I had thought possible. There is even a girl there who I think is very nice. Yet my mind still struggles with the fact that all members of my mother’s group seem to live in this area of their own free will. They are not living here in order to build a large catamaran. Anyway. The trenches. Yes. Yesterday I was in the Somme.

Small Z did not have a lengthy relationship with sleep yesterday, as each time she seemed about to have any, I had to drag her in and out of the car. For a baby that only really chucks a mayhem at arsenic hour, having a sad little bugger shackled in the back of the car when you have to drive an hour from home and then an hour back is probably quite close to my idea of hell. First we went to the mother’s group, and then had to drive into town for me to drop off my work files and collect more. By that stage she was very miserable, and SO tired.

L at work held her for a bit just as I was sorting out my stuff to leave and she fell asleep. I took her, still asleep, and put her in the CAPSULE OF EVIL (i.e. the carseat) whereupon she awoke and was yelling. I drove grimly toward my mother’s house, about a four minute drive from my work. Of course, just as I rounded the corner of the side street to my mum’s, she fell asleep. Naturally, I could not then stop the car, because that would have awoken the Kraken of the deep. So I called my mum and said we wouldn’t be stopping by. She was very indignant, as she had stayed home all afternoon waiting and did not know of my dire and horrible day…I screamed unintelligibly into the phone and threw it across the car, and then drove around for ages, too scared to get stuck in peak hour traffic on the way home, but too scared to turn off the engine.

I called L. Small C is seven months now, so she has been in the trenches recently, and still enters them regularly. SHe was sensible. “Come here, I will make us a cup of tea, and if you don’t want to turn off the car, then leave it running in the driveway.”
So I did. Of course, after ten minutes the Kraken awoke, but then we walked down and got some takeaway Indian to have back at the trailer, and L gave me tea and Small C lent Small Z her change table. It was all convivial, and saved my sanity.

The drive home was almost another epic. Poor little Z was so sick of being in the carseat, and was so tired she was beside herself (an interesting phrase). I drove into the Bunnings carpark near Cheltenham and drove backwards and forwards over a speedhump, which was an effective soporific. I had to pull over once more on our journey. By the time we hit Cranbourne she was asleep, but threatened to mutiny at every traffic light; so as I drove through Cranbourne, each time I got near a set of red lights, I would veer off into the car parks and petrol stations on the left, just to keep driving - because this time I was unable to cope with any more backseat traumas

Finally we made it back to the Trailer. Small Z asleep. M got her out of the capsule, and for some reason did not put her straight in bed. She then mayhem-ed for the next three hours. All up, it was the hardest day I have had, and she has had, since her arrival. And it is for that reason we will be finding an alternative way to do things. Shoving her in the car for two hours when she is still such a tiny thing just so I can go and pick up files is TOO MUCH HARD WORK. M said that every time he telephoned me during the day it was as if I was a war correspondent in Iraq. There has to be a better way…