sunday morning, in pain, and the kids are screaming!

So when you wake up on a Sunday morning in chronic pain and you are single, or married and childless, I suppose you can take your painkillers and curl up with a nice cup of tea, preferrably made by your loving partner, and listen to The Archers, or whatever takes your fancy, and nurse your wounds. Maybe a bath later, and a DVD on the sofa with a hot water bottle.

This morning it is somewhat different.

I have had to bribe Pre-Pubescent Beauty to 'look after' Blue-Eyed Boy, which does work, up to a point, but there is a price tag. The noise level is high, the TV is on continuously (which I never normally allow), food is definitely eaten but I'm not sure much of it was fruit, and the amount of play fighting eventually escalates into a full scale row which I then have to detangle and calm down.

We haven't reached the full scale row stage yet. We're at the manic pre-full-scale row stage. So I rang the landline from my mobile (literally the only way to get them into my bedroom as they can't hear me above the self-generated noise), and again I bribe them heavily to get dressed, make their beds and tidy up. Luckily I have some cute soft toys I bought for them as a treat for getting through their first full week at school when I bought a gift for my new nephew, so I can actually put my money where my mouth is for once.

Meanwhile I've taken 300mg of Tramadol and 30mg of DiHydrocodeine and a cup of peppermint tea kindly, eventually made by PPD, and am 'patiently' waiting til pain subsides enough to be able to have a shower, get dressed, and start the day.

We will go to a cafe, as I really do not feel well enough to cook, and we had pasta and pizza already yesterday - I'm not sure they can face beans on toast and I know I can't. Then we will go to the local soft play centre, where I can sit and drink water and read the paper and a toilet is within 50metres, and they can run around and play and burn off all the remaining energy.

Later we'll come home to finish homework and I will feel a bit better by then, as the painkillers will have properly kicked in and generally afternoons are easier than mornings...

While I'm glad we're 'coping', I feel sad that things are this way.

They weren't, a little more than a year ago. The play fighting and noise level and general semi-chaos was all there, but I was part of it, stomping around in my pink slippers like Bianca from Eastenders, tickling them, joking with them, maybe raising my voice if they started actually hitting each other (!), but basically we had cosy Sunday mornings all together.

Now, unless they choose to cuddle in bed with me, which is sometimes but not for long, I feel like some fucking Victorian cripple, ailing in an upstairs room while life continues below me.

Thank god they are 10 and 6. If they were 7 and 3, or 5 and 1, I don't think I could be living as a single mum in chronic pain.

As it is, we're on a knife-edge, though I don't think the children realise quite how much of a knife-edge it is. I do a good cover up job.