Today, I did something almost unthinkable. 

I know many of my mummy readers may suspect that I made it up, it’s so, well, unbelievable. But I didn’t. It’s a true story. It all began when I went into Patch’s room, and saw this:

  
I thought about shouting. I thought about crying. I even thought about running away. Not just because of this you understand. The reality is that the only room in the entire house which is usually in some way habitable is Patch’s room. I suppose this was like some kind of metaphoric red rag to a bull. I felt very much like doing this:

  
But then, I had a brainwave. In a flash, while the kids were still wondering why I had run off without even uttering a word, I gathered together the following:

   
   
And then, wait for it, no really, I actually did this…I LOCKED THE BATHROOM DOOR!!!  Agh! I know! Ignoring all of my parental instincts, and all of the conditioning training instilled in me by the little darlings over the last 6 years, I shut and locked the door, with the kids in the wrong side of it (or the right side if you are looking at it from my perspective!). Ignoring the increasingly unsettled calls from outside the bathroom door, I slipped into a warm bubble bath, cracked open my can of G&T, and opened the novel which I have been attempting to read for about the last year. 

For the first 5 minutes, I struggled with the rhythmic kicking of the door, crying, and calls for Mummy. After that, I slipped into a kind of self-induced trance. I read two whole chapters of my novel, stretched out my aching limbs in the warm bubbly water, and enjoyed a weird new flavour of G&T in a can. The sensation was amazing. It felt like I had been in there for an hour when I eventually emerged, while in reality it was just under 15 minutes. 

When I emerged from the bathroom, smelling like freshly mown flowers, with a towel turban on my head, the tribe, snotty and tearful having been denied my services for 12.5 whole minutes, fell silent. It was rather like I had cast a magic spell. They were looking at me suspiciously as though I were some sort of witch rather than their ever subservient mother. 

It didn’t last, of course, but for a very short time, it was as though I had cast a magic spell. They each got into their pyjamas without a fight. 

Obviously once they had their PJ’s on, normal fighting resumed!