Just another day

I’ve not been sleeping all that well recently. I lie awake terrified of earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes and murderous assassins. When I do fall asleep it’s only temporary as Elizabeth wakes me eventually and then I convince myself the murderous assassin is making his way up the stairs to our bedrooms and lie desperate to go to the dunny but too scared to breathe. Eventually I realise it’s just the wind creaking the stairs and not a volcanic tremor or assassin – why an assassin would be interested in my mundane existence I cannot answer – then I make my way down the stairs with mobile phone in hand ready to dial 000, oops I mean 111. (000 is the Australian emergency number and probably in a frantic hurry I’ll dial the wrong number anyway). I’m going nuts. I could pay for some counseling but quite frankly I’d rather spend the money on a nice outfit or a new hairdo. And besides, during the day, I lead a fairly normal existence, whatever that means.

I struggle to walk the dogs when Ben is away. The kids are not always keen to accompany me but they can’t be left at home alone so I have to trot out with two uncooperative children and two emotional dogs. The hardest part of the walk is bringing out the leads right at the start which always creates an eruption of emotion (ha, ha, volcanoes again) in both dogs and Zeki attacks Freud. Just this week I decided to take a bag of tuna with me and it works. The dogs are so focused on the tuna that they forget to have a fight. If only this worked on humans. Really I think Zeki needs some Valium but the vet is not convinced. I’m sure he thinks I’m trying to get the Valium for myself and just using Zeki as an excuse. Me, anxious and in need of valium? As if.

I had to take both children to the post office today to post some Christmas presents. Disaster. There was a long queue and someone must have injected Daniel with some red cordial because he went berserk: flailing on the ground kicking his legs, running over to the wall and kicking it, hitting hanging postage packets for sale. I really wanted to smack him and I’m sure everyone else in the post office wanted to as well but of course I didn’t and instead grabbed his arm and held him hostage by my side against his wishes. When I got to the front of the queue, some stickers I was hoping to buy as bribes for the kids had no price on them. I told the lady not to worry because I just needed to get out of there and instead she gave me some free stickers and only charged me 20c for this pack which would normally have been something like several dollars. What a nice lady. When we got back to the car Daniel apologised.