School's back and the mad mornings begin

Wednesday, September 3 08

The day went something like this
1.00am – Mrs Bennet finally falls asleep
2.13am – Miss Rosie Bennet awakes
2.30am – Mrs Bennet falls asleep again
3.04am – Miss Kezia Bennet cries out in sleep waking Mrs Bennet
3.15 am – Mrs Bennet is reunited with her friend Sleep
6.45am – Mrs Bennet is separated from Sleep due to Milk Bar opening for Miss Kezia Bennet
7.30am – Two lunch boxes are made up and lined up by door
7.45am – Cereal is passed round to willing eaters, Weetabix gunge sticks to floor
7.55am – Various items of clothes are distributed to Miss Bennets numbers three, four and five 7.56am - Mr Bennet eats, shoots a kiss and leaves
8.00am – Nappy changes for runaway bottoms
8.10am – Mrs Bennet realises she is not dressed
8.15am – Mrs Bennet slurps cold tea, grabs a brush and works from Bennet head to head. She spikes her own hair with buttered toast fingers. Butter acts as a good gel.
8.20am – Miss Bennet number three can only find one trainer. Mrs Bennet who is changing another moving bottom, sends daughter number two to help.
8.25am – Six sets of teeth (if you can count two teeth as a set) are brushed.
8.30am – Mrs Bennet orders coats on, shoes on and a disorderly line up by the door.
8.35am – Five neatly brushed heads and a buttered toasted one are now soggy due to rain.
8.40am – The Bennet bus finally leaves to find a space big enough to cater for a large backside.
8.45am – Miss Naomi Bennet runs through school gate, too eager to get back to studying. Doesn’t say goodbye.
8.50am – Four little Bennets and a Mrs Bennet get lost in a sea of green uniform, shivers, raincoats and chattering children.
9.00am – The bell goes, surrogate mums and dads collect pupils, march them inside leaving mums bereft of some or all of their childrem. All is strangely quiet.
9.05am – Miss Bennet number three moans, Miss Bennet number four groans and Miss Bennet number five who's hanging dangerously out of pushchair tries to eat the rain. A dripping and bedraggled Mrs Bennet realises it’s going to be a very long day.

The farcical routine of carrying babies in, then out, to put them back into car, to take them out and then lifting them in again, out, in, out, in, out has begun. As it’s swimming lesson day, Mrs Bennet and all five children go to the pool: two in the water at 4.30pm, who get out as another gets in, while smaller two walk around the walls of the viewing gallery, picking up whatever they can find on the floor. Somehow all six get home. The only missing item is a new labelled green cardigan which went to school on Miss Bennet number one’s body, but went home on someone else's. Oh and a few brain cells which once belonged to Mrs Bennet. She accidentally put them in Miss Bennet number two’s lunch box.