The Mummy’s in a bad mood syndrome

Wednesday, September 23 ‘09

“How would you feel Megan if I kept telling tales of you?” asked an indignant Miss Bennet Number Two.
“Sad,” replied a quietly spoken Miss Bennet Number Three, who after a long pause, added: “But then I feel sad because you hit me!”
Most people had an alarm clock. Mrs Bennet had squabbles as her new-day welcome. After the first ten minutes she just knew it wasn’t going to be an easy few hours. Her stomach was knotted, her head pounded and she did not want to face an hour of battling against wills, detangling hair and scraping squashed cornflakes and jammy toast off the floor or walls. She felt stressed. Mr Bennet had casually informed her last night that he was off to Singapore for five days. His announcement came at a moment when her resources were empty, her brain was scrambled and her body exhausted. She was in a season of change. Not THE change thankfully, but never-the-less, there were various things in her new decade calendar which took her out of her comfort zone farther than she had anticipated. She had embarked on leading her first parenting course, started a year’s art and design course on a Tuesday evening to see if there was anything creative left in her after 22 years and the twins had driven off with a childminder for the first time. Having interviewed some 85 artists over the past 18 months, Mrs Bennet had felt inspired and had decided to throw herself back into her art and this morning was the first of a 10 week pastel course. She thought it would be fun to play about with colour as her young children did so freely. But she was so uptight inside, all Mrs Bennet kept thinking was: “what am I doing here and why did I come?” By lunchtime she bitterly regretted plunging into anything new. The efforts needed to get to such a course, whether it was this one or the Tuesday evening, was such that she felt so frazzled by the time she arrived, it took her almost the entire class duration to unwind. Surrounded by those who clearly knew what a pastel was and had either been to art college, painted regularly or taught art, she wanted to leave before she had even made a mark on the page.
It didn’t help that she was feeling bad at shouting at the Miss Bennets and blew her top because one of them refused to look for a pair of white socks. They had absolutely no sense of urgency to get out of the house and quite frankly Mrs Bennet was fed up in shepherding them to the boarding gate. Like a kettle she boiled over, steam pouring from her nostrils and words flowing uncontrollably. She then suddenly stopped, fell to her knees, burst into tears and apologized profusely to the little Miss Bennets, who immediately threw their arms around her. She, now the child; they the adults.
This morning, the boarding gate was crammed with five lunchboxes, nappy bags, book bags, art bag, shoes, three swimming kits and a gym bag – in case she could run away afterwards. Despite this, due to the emotions bubbling within the Mummy, it was not the smoothest of exits. It was hardly surprising then that colour didn’t flow. Mrs Bennet wanted to wear black, scribble all over her pictures and run away. What parent was she to lead a parenting course? And why did she think she could be an artist? Mrs Bennet was clearly not having a good day.