You are chosen. There is a special place reserved for you in Heaven, if you are to come back in the afterlife, it’s as a Princess, in a castle, surrounded by chocolate and a ridiculous metabolism that means you never put on weight.

Your name is not ‘Hungry’. Believe me, they might tell you it is, but it isn’t.

One day, you will appear in public again and you will look sane. You might even have handsome grown up sons with you and in my mind’s eye, you’ll shirk and say, ‘aw, it was nothing, they were good boys.’

On another such fine day, you’ll stop standing on lego on arising from the bed, you’ll not trip over car toys at every step.

Nobody, darling, knows what you go through with laundry. No, it’s not possible unless they own a launderette across the road from a construction site, nobody could understand the amount of clothes you have to wash, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Nobody.

There is a world out there yet for you to travel where the people don’t speak fluently the language of poos, farts (excuse me) and wees. Normal people don’t find bodily excretion as funny. Imagine.

Only you have the knowledge that comes from the sidelines where, one, two, three boys and sometimes their father roll around on the floor wrestling, giggling, hurting each other, you know to shrug and walk away. You know, though others don’t, that this is perfectly normal. It gives you a chance to fold some more washing.

Only you know what it’s like when your four year old tell you that when he’s big, he’ll marry you because you’re his heart. You’re the one the seven year old runs to with tales of the schoolyard and classroom after school. Your face is the one your baby searches for when he cries from his cot. You know what it’s like to be in a cuddle sandwich when one of them shouts ‘group hug’ and although it might hurt, you revel in the glory of it all.

And finally, they always try to make you laugh or surprise you or impress you. You are a bit of a Queen Bee in a hive full of busy bees. So flick on the coffee maker and try and smile when they serve you cornflakes, cheerios, jam and milk as a treat for mother’s day; you are chosen after all. Believe it.

Happy Mother’s Day to you.

I could photograph it but already some nine hours into March and it seems this month is not in the least bit photogenic. March is volatile, March could go anyway, March could be the makings of us, March could be the beginning of the end. That’s March for you.

If I were to photograph it, it would look messy. Our farmer arrived in at midnight last night to a wife collapsed with the tired on the couch. At one hour into March, I nagged him up to bed. At seven hours in with children coughing and fighting in our vicinity, we wake up and realize we’re late. The house is running late. He goes out and realizes that two more cows have just calved without him, he is cross because he wasn’t there. I’m cross because I could have gone out and checked them. We’ve run out of room, some calves will have to be sold in the mart tomorrow. He is trying to sort out the calves and their thankfully healthy mothers and I’m trying to figure which of the children are healthy enough for school.

March hangs its miserable old head over us trying to decide which way to go. Will it  continue raining or will it give us a few dry days to dry up the already very wet ground? The cows need to go on grass now to ensure that the milk is of a good enough quality to provide us with a good price. That first milk cheque of the year will need to be good and don’t let any farmer tell you otherwise.

In the kitchen in March mode, dinners become creative as we discover the back shelves of the pantry. In the office, we try to keep paper work in order to ensure that when the madness subsides, it might look like we had a hand at some sort of efficiency should we be inspected.

Wittering away and giving out at the kitchen sink, I see a daffodil out the window and I realize I’m being unfair to the month and she’s only in the door. Like the kranky old auntie, she’s settled herself in and is already looking for tea and empathy and I’m giving out about her already. But March has much to teach us, challenging us to become even better in our approach to it all. But mainly, we’ll just grin and bare her until she picks up her bags and wonders off the farm, spluttering, complaining and coughing as she goes. It could be a long month. Look, we’ll try our best anyway. She’s left a vase of daffodils in the kitchen for us to enjoy.