If you are forever cleaning your house when people come to visit, they will forever think that your house is clean. You have created this expectation that you maintain a clean environment all the time. So when someone comes to visit and you haven’t had the chance to clean, there looks to be a problem – “oh no have you been unwell? Has something happened?” Goodness no, this is actually my natural habitat.

I feel like that expectation moves over to parenting. When you are constantly happy and seeming in control, it’s almost harder when you have a bad day. It’s harder to admit that there may actually be a problem and that you are not coping, because people have this expectation from you that you are fine.

Sometimes I realize how ill equipped I am for this parenting gig. That I am so inexperienced and under qualified.

I understand now that we have bad days, that behind closed doors we lose our stuff and it all becomes too much.

I see people I know and they say how you going today? I say “Oh you know I have good days and bad days.” I say this with a smile so they don’t delve any further. I don’t like crying and I wont in public.

The reality is that the bad days are outweighing the good at the moment. Each morning I pep talk myself. Ill be better today, be more patient. By the time I’m getting the kids into to the car my voice has transformed from Mary Poppins into Bat Man.

I told my five year old daughter the other day if she got out of bed one more time I would cut her teddy bears head off. And that my friend right there was when I realized I hit breaking point.

I have a two year old who likes to go to battle with simplest tasks. ‘Get in the car’ sure she gets in the car, but then proceeds to run from the front to the back to the middle where I cant reach her. ‘Go to bed’ sure she goes to bed, but then she gets up nine hundred times. She runs into her sister’s preprimary class switches the light off and then runs out. Every day I wake up knowing that I am going battle with a two year old, and that is exhausting.

Reminding myself that the days are long, but the years are short does help some, except for those days that feel never ending. When I want to curl under my doona and wait until they are grown up and married and dealing with their own battles of parenthood. Then I can sit there and say ‘oh you know some days are better than others, but you will be ok.”

Sometimes we are not ok, sometimes we need a me day. That is ok. It is ok to wake up one day and just not want to battle it out. It’s ok to not want to wife as well as you think should. This is all ok.

It is not ok, when the bad constantly outweighs the good, and your brain becomes fifty shades of grey and I’m not talking in the romantic, toe-curling way.

Being a strong mum is sometimes putting your hand up and saying Time out guys, I need a sub.

They say that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but sometimes the tunnel is too dark to go alone and you need someone to carry the torch for you. Someone is always willing to carry that torch.

So sub me out guys, I need to be a bench warmer today, but tomorrow Ill go all four quarters.