She’s just settled herself outside with a cup of tea and her notebook. She has brought the biscuits and fruit with her in a bid to draw the infants out into the autumn sunshine. It works, out they toddle. There’s a caterpillar making its way across the table, ‘It might be a bit hungry,‘ the toddler decides. He feeds it his leftover orange peel and misinterprets the creature’s panic for enjoyment. Gleeful laughter ensues. They all smile at each other, a mother and her boys.

What a difference half an hour makes, she muses. Half an hour ago they had been in the car, whinges and cries exhaling like a noisy fog from the backseat. Deep breaths of patience and calm inhaling at the front. She had just realised that the clock reading 3:06pm had not been changed to mark the end of daylight savings and should in fact be reading 2:06pm.

Gah! She let out an internal cry. How could it only be 2 o’clock?

The thought of returning home to drag their way through the rest of the afternoon did not seem appealing. She drove a few extra blocks, a time-wasting ploy not lost on the ever observant toddler. Right, she decided, this is not that hard, she just needed a couple of deep breaths and a plan. It’s always the afternoons she finds hard.

She walks them through the front door, heading straight for the kitchen. Haphazardly she arranges some good and not-so-good food onto a plate and opens the door for outside. Sunshine. She turns on the music at the same time she picks  up her pen. ‘I’m going to do a little bit of writing,’ she tells the boys, ‘you can find something to do.’ The baby grins back happily, satisfied with the food put before him. The toddler wanders, searching for something to pique his interest.

It was then that the caterpillar had come stretch-arching across the table and she had called for the children to come and see. 

Now she sits watching them, and she wonders for the millionth time how she could ever think of motherhood as hard.  Her sons’ simple delight in the caterpillar brings her such pleasure.

Not five minutes later and she has once more remembered. The baby is crying again because he didn’t sleep for long enough, the toddler is begging for his favourite show to be put back on. A meltdown is brewing.

This is parenthood, she knows. It is as wonderful as it is relentless.

In that moment she wants to turn away from the overwhelming responsibility of raising little people. 

She wants to turn outward. Out to what? She doesn’t know. Social media? A glass of wine? An escape? 

She doesn’t turn outward, she turns in. She takes a big breath and she turns in to her little people. She scoops the baby up in her arms and draws the toddler to her chest, ‘We’re all having a hard time,’ she says, ushering them inside to their toys and books.

And though the rest of the afternoon moves slowly, she is comforted by the thought that we are faced with two choices when life gets a bit sticky: we can turn out, or we can turn in.

She likes turning in.