'What's that noise?': This mum's horror school run story is everything
Anna Sparago-Ryan is mum to two kids: one 'big' and one 'little'.
And in an article for Medium, that has recently gone viral, the mum documents a typical morning in her household, and, to be honest, it's like she's describing our exact routine.
"You get out of bed, making sure to trip over a shoe your kid left in the middle of the floor for no reason," she writes, after first explaining that her partner has already fled the house before anyone else has a chance to get up.
"It’s Wednesday. On Wednesdays they have PE, netball practice, piano lessons, and you take home the extra kid from down the street because his mum has a late uni tute and his dad can’t pick him up on account of having to make jokes about farts with the other guys in the team.
"Luckily you have a handy calendar inside your brain, so you never forget any of these things."
After managing to make it out of her room alive following the shoe incident, Anna then enters the kitchen where she discovers the cat has pooed on the floor.
And tries unsuccessfully to wipe it up with a used kitchen towel her partner "dropped in the sink after he wiped up part of the cereal he spilled an hour ago."
Things just get worse when she enters her big kid's room to summon him out of bed. Three GET UPs later and he finally gets the hint.
"When you try to remember what you’ve been doing since you woke up at 6, actual church bells just bang loudly inside your skull," Anna continues.
"Your little kid slept with wet hair and now it’s full of tangles.
"You ask if you can gently brush them out. She tells you you’re the worst mum in the world and she hates you and is going to live with Ava’s mum.
"You get the biggest brush you have and coax out one knot. Your little kid screams so loudly the neighbours think about calling the police but don’t because their own kid is also screaming."
Then a message from her husband comes in: it's a picture of a cat at a cafe where he currently is.
At home, breakfast is Vegemite served on a hand because there is no bread.
Finally everyone is up, dressed, fed and ready to go.
But then the little one remembers that she has to go dressed as a sea creature.
"So you find a bit of green ribbon in the weird drawer where all the Life stuff is and you staple it to your kid’s forehead as kelp, and you realise you can repurpose the new costume for book week (which now includes characters from books and movies and TV and Fantale wrappers)."
It's not until she reaches the school gate and drop the kids off that it's time to finally grab the coffee that she's been longing for since 6am.
"So you order yours to go and then you sit in the car and your phone rings and the vibration knocks over your keep cup and now your car is covered in coffee.
"You answer the phone and it’s the school calling because your little kid is bleeding from where you stapled the ribbon to her head, so even though it’s on a lease plan with Telstra for $FUCKTONS a month you throw the phone into the sea."
But when asked "How's your day going?", like the rest of us, Anna simply replies, "Grand thanks, you?"
You can read the full post here – and, trust us, you'll want to!