The School Run | Artifact Motherhood Blog Circle | Family Photographer Bath

Shoes on, coats on, out the door (‘have you done your teeth?!’), come on, quick quick quick quick, in the car, no sit down in your seat, let me put your belt on, off we go, we’re going to be late, run, let’s go, come on!

It’s almost the same every morning and it is such a stressful start to the day, for you mainly. My blood pressure is raised so high before 9am with the hair raising run to the school gates, your brother refusing to go in the pushchair now, so we do our mad dash, yanking at your brothers arm so he doesn’t run in the road.

I see other parents with multiples that seem to have their children under better control, obedient toddlers sat in pushchairs nibbling on an Ella’s bar. Why not us? Making conversation with other parents at this time is hard and I try to avoid it. I’m aware how on the edge I must look most days. But that’s just the thing, I feel like I want to say to people, I’m not this crazy woman you see every morning running towards the school gate. As soon as this insane and short part of my day is over I’m a calm adult who gets on with her day.

It’s a similarly anxiety inducing experience at pick-up. Making snatched conversations with whichever parent is close by but trying to keep an eye on the little line of people coming out so I don’t miss you. I see your little face pop out and conversations are stopped mid sentence to receive your outstretched arms of a book bag, lunchbox, water bottle, endless pieces of paper and your coat. It is a slower walk back to the car, I am laden down with all your belongings and no free hands to stop your brother running in the road, so I have to screech at him to stay on the pavement. You look startled or, most upsetting to me, embarrassed by your mother’s loud voice.

By the time we get to the car my nervous system is in overdrive. I oscillate between asking you for an intensive breakdown of your day to needing to stay very quiet and say nothing at all.

I don’t know how to do this differently at the moment. I don’t know how to make this better or easier for all of us.

I do know that most days it feels painful. Physically and logistically painful yes, but there is a deep emotional pain I feel when I say goodbye to you.

I used to take you to your classroom, help you hang your coat up and sort of shepherd you into the classroom, with my protective arm around your little shoulders and that desperate kiss goodbye. You now want to walk in on your own, which I obediently but reluctantly respect and your brother and I stay on the periphery of your school world, waving you off.

I miss you terribly during the day. And I feel depressed when you are unable to tell me if you’ve had a good day. And I know all of these feelings are coming from the fact that I’m always holding onto the past. Always looking back and getting a nauseating knot in my stomach or a lump in my throat to those days when it was you and I at home together.

Everything slips away. You both change so rapidly. Everything around us seems to be changing at the moment. Except our unrelenting routine of the school run.

#artifactmotherhood

Welcome to Artifact Motherhood. This is a collaboration of artists from around the world who have come together to share our stories of the joys and struggles of our journey. Through our writings and visual records we want to create memories that are more than photographs with dates written on the back. These are the artefacts we are leaving behind for our children and for generations to come.

Please check out the next artist in our blog circle, the wonderful and talented Rose Dedman and continue through all the artists until you get back to me.