3 secrets to banish hellish afternoons

Oh afternoons, how I loathe thee.

For months I’ve been trying to unlock the secret to good afternoons, or at least bearable ones. I get sick of losing my temper. Of losing my God-damned mind. Finally I’ve discovered three simple but effective keys to banish the bullshit, and I’ll share them with you. I’ll even throw in a bonus parenting tip at the end.

One

A while back, I ran into my good mate and she mentioned this blog about training yourself. And she told me that’s how she feels about mornings. Personally I’m good with the morning. I wish we rushed less, but in the big scheme, that’s nothing. This particular arvo I was on the way to the post office to pick up a parcel, looking like I’d been trampled by kangaroos. She was coming from school pick-up looking like she’d stepped out of the salon.

I had to ask. I had to! “What is your secret?”

“Afternoon coffee.”

Two words changed my parenting journey forever. 

I hear how melodramatic that sounds, but you’ll be amazed how much better you parent when you’re not slaughtered. 

Two

Beyond worshipping the coffee Goddess, something effective but a bit harder is to make lunch your family’s main meal, or cook dinner in advance. Batch cook on the weekend, put on a slow cooker in the morning, or send the kids to school with a five-colour lunch so it doesn’t matter if you throw a basic dinner their way.

That last one is my favourite. If the kids have already met most of their nutrition targets for the day then I can just chuck some potatoes or pasta on and have them fed in ten minutes, freeing myself up for homework questions, or the ability to cook something spicy for Dear Hart and I. If you like cooking, or your trouble time isn’t the afternoon, just think of the thing you hate most about that part of your day and find a way to do it at some other time. Hate searching for shoes and socks ten minutes after you should have left the house? Lay that shit out the night before. Kids always crying while you’re trying to get the laundry hung? Do it while they are eating dinner so you don’t have to listen to them whine about your cooking, or better yet, get a lower clothes airer and make them hang it themselves. Okay, I’m feeling narky tonight, maybe don’t to that last one!

The point is, sometimes you have to “eat the frog first” and sometimes it’s a chocolate frog and it’s just the atmosphere that makes the frog seem awful.

Three

Nothing adjusts your mood like an orgasm.

Now I’m not going to start channelling Constance Hall and go around wearing a Chicks Wank shirt, but you all know I was in a long distance relationship for five years and if that doesn’t give it away, I practice a fertility religion for God’s sake! I’m not going to pretend I don’t know one end of a dildo from the other.

Of course, this goes hand in hand with the whole prolapse thing, because flicking the budgie is a much more enjoyable way of doing your pelvic floor exercises. That shit is boring and I’m supposed to do them three times a day, every day until I die.
Frankly, I’d rather have a wank. 

It can be hard to get a few minutes to yourself, but like anything with kids (or housemates, or parents,) you can generally study their patterns and see if there’s an opportunity. For example, I know my kids aren’t going to bother me during dinner time. If I’m not in the room they will probably sing instead of eating, but they aren’t going to bug me because they know I’m going to ask them if they have eaten, and of course they haven’t. I also know that my youngest takes a good 15 to 20 minutes to poo. Tea party on the balcony keeps them going for ages. These are the moments in which I steal back the pieces of who I was before.

Bonus

If you have more than one child, separate them in the time between coming home and dinner arriving on the table. That hour or so is key fight time. If one is in the bedroom reading and the other is using playdoh at the kitchen table they aren’t screaming. They can bond with each other after dinner when their inner monster is digesting.

So there you have it, my top three ways to minimise afternoon hell. Leave your tips in the comments or on Facebook, I’d love to hear what you do to make the hard parts of your day suck a little less.

Miriam Cumming is a Wiccan witch, an author, and the mum of three little Goddesses who turn into demons at 3pm sharp. When she’s not drinking coffee and writing she doesn’t know who she is or how she got here. If you catch her outside of her natural habitat, please throw offerings of dark chocolate and run away.

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