Hustle by the SunshineGarden on Etsy
When Olive is gone, I catch up. I catch up on long-read articles I’ve bookmarked and emails I’ve put off answering and invoices I’ve neglected to send. The three days are typically jam-packed with a flurry of activity and getting-shit-done-ness that just doesn’t exist when she’s here.
Truth be told, I often feel woefully ill-equipped to the sort of multi-tasking focus that being a parent, particularly a mother, requires. Anywhere Olive and I go, I’m confronted with the type of mother I envy – the one with a meticulously packed bag filled with zero-waste snacks and a sweater in case it gets cold and all sorts of just-in-case shit that it would never, ever occur to me to bring.
Olive and I end up sitting in the corner of the Science Centre cafeteria gnawing on our purchased grilled cheese sandwiches like feral animals. Everyone who walks past with their homemade lunches immediately recognises us for what we are – chumps who forgot to plan better. Damn.