My Head Hurts!

Today has been a stinker from around three pm onwards.

I literally have grown sick of the sound of my own voice. A friend of mine said to me earlier today that every mum has that awful banshee voice, the one we wish we didn't possess, but yet all do. I feel so angry, at myself, at my kids, at life in general. Oh, and not forgetting my local council.

So, the day started well, better than other days recently, Dylan and Joe let me arise and evolve into a human without too much whining and complaining. Score one for Mummy. I washed the dirty clothes, and then the dirty dishes in the sink without feeling too overworked haha. Then I dropped the boys at their nannan's house, while I caught the bus to town to attend a bank appointment.
             Natwest are fantastic by the way. Customer service at it's best

I called to my friend and childminder's new house on the way home, she'd asked me to pick up some ready-mixed filler for her and I wanted to drop it off. Literally, it weighed a ton. I asked if she needed more gloss painting doing, as that was 'my official job' because she finds it difficult to get down to the skirting boards. Upstairs still needed gloss paint on the skirtings and the woodwork, so I did that. I love glossing so fast and easy as long as you mind where the brush goes.

My friend and her little girl were coming to my house for an hour or two at half three, and I picked my kids up on the way home. We watched the kids play together, and all three kids had a good time. We all went up to the fish and chip shop for tea, which incidentally, is the best around here, and then went our separate ways. Me and mine went home and my friend and her daughter went to their own house.

Then the mayhem started. Dylan and Joseph ate their tea in random places for unknown reasons. With my kids, sometimes it's best just to leave them to their weird yet wonderful ways, as the answers they offer both stun and astound.

It was a while later that they showed me their latest discovery - they can now open their windows in their shared bedroom. My local council who own my house, have made recent renovations to it. We have had new double glazing, a new kitchen and bathroom, new boiler and central heating system, a new 'safe' fake flame fire and surround in our living room, and some rewiring. While I am extremely grateful that I received these updates to my home, and they were very much needed too, I cannot, for the life of me,understand why the window fitters insisted that ALL upstairs windows must have 'safety features'. Read 'they will not lock AT ALL'. Fine, fine, I understand that people lock their upstairs windows and immediately lose the keys. Okay. But must my children, who are too young to understand I don't want them opening any upstairs windows FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY also have safety feature windows, that coincidentally wouldn't be safe for them really. I would like locking windows in that particular room. I will cause havoc in my local council office until I get them too.

Tonight, I have had to shout, scream, wail, plead, cajole, barter, threaten and blackmail to:
            
   a) get my children to calm the hell down,
   b) stop opening said stupid windows,
and c) go to sleep safely with all windows closed.

I didn't feel safe leaving them in their room to go to sleep like I've done hundreds of times since the new glazing was installed, so I've left the housework and every other little thing i wanted or needed to do to simply sirt in their room with them until they went to sleep.

Which took a hell of a lot longer because I was there.

So tomorrow, I fully intend to go and request locking windows and sit there in the offices until Iget the answer I want. Sorry internets, rant completed.