“Yummy Mummy” my arse.

I’ve never been the Yummy Mummy type. For a long time (pre children, obviously), I envied those I perceived to be the sort. Preened and pressed kiddos, perfectly spoken, well nourished, rarely misbehaving. She was super-skinny, immaculate at EVERY HOUR of the goddamn day, had time to put the world and Jupiter to rights, and had about 17 frillion meals cooked from scratch, each and every week. (Her freezer contains every meal you can think of. Her fridge, alongside the single unopened bottle of wine, contains every raw ingredient you could imagine.)

I dunno why I envied her, especially as she didn’t bloody-well EXIST.

I very rarely manage any of the above, and it’s a special day for flying pork goods if I was able to coincide two or more of these events.

And then fuck me, Friday afternoon, some crazy shit did happen right in my house.

Every week, we’re really crap at getting through all the food we buy. I don’t know why; I think we do that whole Best Intentions thing, lots of raw ingredients, and then the week goes to piss. The Mr works away, I have a client booking, we want to be shit-faced – whatever. Don’t get me wrong, we do cook some fucking ace meals, as my instagram feed will tell you. And I’ll even make an effort for The Smalls when I can be bothered remember.

That day? Friday? After an impressively stress-filled week? I made their lunches as usual, while they ate breakfast. Not sandwiches, haphazardly slapped with jam, ohhhh no. No. I cooked pasta. And sausages. And peas. Threw it all in together, and into their little lunch tubs, along with all the other bits and pieces, in time for school. Huh.

And then that evening? I not only herded them BACK into the car to get a chippy tea, but I also did lunch for Saturday (since I was off shooting, I thought I’d make it easier on The Mr). Not just any old tea, no. On looking in the fridge, I found lamb meatballs. Soooo…I made rosemary and minted lamb meatball stew thing. With, like, prepared vegetables and EVERYTHING. And I made sure there were potatoes sorted for shepherd’s pie that evening. Soooo….no one needed to cook anything until Sunday lunchtime.

Now, I’m all for keeping the universe balanced and all that shit. So while they ate their fish and chips, I plonked their backsides on a picnic mat in front of Ben & Holly. It’s taken them twice as long to eat, and I had to pause it twice and yell at them to keep chewing before it gets too cold.

I feel better now. Especially as I stole Isaac’s mini fish because he was stuffed full of chips. And of course, the kitchen is still a spectacular shit tip.