Craziness is having an emotional meltdown because the tumble drying isn't drying the soccer T-shirts you forgot to hang out. It's 10pm and you're so tired you could puke, yet there's still so much to do. School cloths to iron, well if the t-shirts would just get dry first. There's Sunday to Wednesday's dishes in the sink - so you need to figure that situation out first before you can clean and prep lunch boxes and juice bottles. A quick check of message books shows that you missed last weeks request for recycled items. (And as an aside I wonder whether if I recycled, would the world maybe be kinder to me. Would karma stop  stomping on me every chance it got) 

Socks. Can't find one matching pair of clean socks. Back to the basket of smelly damp washing to find a pair of socks to toss into the tumble dryer. Open tumble dryer that's still blowing cold air out the little holes in the door, and find wet washing, also very cold, flapping around in the drum, no dryer that when I tossed it in there almost an hour ago.

I guess sticking them in other t-shirts won't kill them. But that would be so embarrassing, for them and even worse for me - being exposed as a mom who doesn't have everything under control. And heaven forbid that the world learn that I'm not super mom. 

It's 11:33 and I have a light bulb moment. Not my tears nor my cursing have affected the tumble dryer. Not positively anyways. I'm almost convinced the mean machine is doing it deliberately to see if I'd crack. 

Plan B - and B may by all means stand for brilliance. I turn the oven on to 180 degrees and give it five minutes to heat up. I then take one far from dry T-shirt and hang it over the inside of the oven door, and close it, careful that the fabric is far from the element and any risk of flaming. Wait two minutes. Open and test - drastic difference in moisture level, t-shirt feels warm as well. Repeat step one with other t-shirt. Alternating pink and green soccer t-shirts, changing angles, t-shirts were not only dry, but shockingly uncreased in just over twenty minutes. I hung the crisp dry tops over some chairs, smelling of freshly baked cupcakes, and finally limped off to bed. 

I should have felt relieved, well more than relieved actually. I should have felt like super mom for saving the day. But the stubborn lump in throat was a reminder that the sink was still full of smelly dishes, the fridge needed cleaning out, the kids were going to school in socks that were almost a full size too small for them. But worst of all, in all my mad ranting, I refused to sit with them and wait till they fell asleep. I left them to moan themselves to sleep. 

I just wish I could get organised. I wish I had help. If I had help would I be able to sit with them at night, till the fell asleep? 

That's about all the time I really get to spend with them. Those few minutes after supper and bathing, just before they doze off, and I was too busy loosing my temper with a tumble dryer.