How to effectively manage the evening tunnel? Spoiler alert, that’s impossible

What does the evening tunnel remind you of? If you burst into tears before collapsing at the mere mention of this term, you’ve come to the right place. If you answer me: appetizer, I hate you, even if you’re not entirely wrong. After all, even in this infernal tunnel, the evening is spent in the company of noisy people who haven’t eaten enough and always end up crying before asking for a last drink instead of going to bed.

Daronnes, darons, you are no longer alone and to prove it I decided to share my evening tunnel with you:

5.55pm

I try to install my son on the bicycle seat, he yells. I refuse to let him ride, because he’s two years old and he’s not the one pedalling, she yells. My daughter wants to know if I plan on flipping her candy for dinner. My answer is the usual. She is screaming.

6:10pm

I work at home and every now and then I make a gesture of compassion towards my future self and calmly prepare a dish for her that she will only have to reheat in the evening. But in general, I rather adopt the attitude of the each for himself and God for all and let future Chloe get on with preparing dinner at the last moment while two little monkeys cling to her calves, squealing with hunger.

6.40pm

Everyone finished their vegetable omelet and scattered the petit-suisse everywhere. Suddenly, my phone rings. I concentrate to hear what my interlocutor is saying, but this is precisely the moment my children have chosen to throw handfuls of yogurt in their face.

6:42 pm

The situation escalates and my son takes advantage of me juggling a towel and my Smartphone to steal the device. The child gratifies my correspondent with a ” AYO ! excited before launching into a dithyrambic tirade about farmyard animals, his passion.

6.45pm

Did I just lose a friend, or colleague, or my accountant? There was too much noise, I didn’t understand the identity of my interlocutor and I can’t check anymore since my son took the phone on board to throw it in his bathtub.

6:46 pm

The boy still feels that the living space is still not filled enough. To fix it, he pours water straight from the toilet into the bathtub.

6:47 pm

I watch the happy splashing crowd: my daughter and son, then, but also three green beans, the doll’s head with hair, a plastic cow and three empty bottles that my darlings refuse to throw away, since they use them as a gourd to drink their little evening infusion, aroma of soap and eau de toilette.

6:57pm

My daughter is about to empty a tube of toothpaste on her brother’s head. I evacuate child number two in extremis.

19:02

I would have loved to get into wrestling sports. Unfortunately this is not the case. However, over the years I have learned to do correct arm locks that allow me to immobilize a child who writhes while mooing, while I try to put on a diaper and pajamas.

7.25pm

The baby is in bed. I wouldn’t say he’s sleeping since right now he’s screaming Mamaaaaan! followed by Bau Bau and of Bêêêê exalted. But she’s finally in bed.

7:26pm

My daughter complains about the temperature in the bathroom. At her age she is perfectly capable of going out, drying off and putting on pajamas by herself, but she is too scared of her that I then ask her to wait for me in HIS bed of hers. You would reduce your chances of incorporating into mine.

7:27pm

As I wipe the ice cube with one hand and poke a toothbrush into her beak with the other, she babbles: – a’an eu o’mir ans about it? I pretend not to understand.

7:28 pm

I take the protesting child to his room. Since I don’t want to be a bad mother, I accuse the father, who is absent for the evening, of being the instigator of this unjust rule which forbids children to squat in their parents’ bed.

7.30pm

My daughter has found the solution: I just have to sleep in her bed.

7:31pm

My daughter cries her eyes out and asks me why I don’t love her.

7:32pm

To make amends I have to reread Frozen 2 three times, the one in which Elsa and Anna are imprisoned in a magical forest and are forced to feed on equally magical mushrooms to survive. Finally, the book does not specify this last point, but it would explain why they spend their lives conversing with trolls and woodland spirits.

7:47pm

Since I haven’t gotten my daughter’s forgiveness yet, I now have to lie down with her for a few minutes. I agree on the condition that you shut up and close your eyes.

7:48 pm

I’m explaining to my daughter that NO, if we die with dad, she won’t go live with her best friend. She is very disappointed.

7:49 pm

My son is banging on the wall of his room shouting ” MUM WHERE ARE YOU? While I have solid evidence that allows me to say that my younger brother also wants me dead, at least he is too young to express it clearly. Grateful, I decide to go see him before he breaks the bedstead by jumping on it.

7.55pm

I fall asleep on the big baby’s mattress while he hums to me Mathurin’s farm stroking my hair.

20:02

Now I feel four little hands caressing my head, a fifth, very wet, caressing my cheek. Oh no, it’s my daughter’s tongue.

20:03

Hell, what’s that bad smell?

8:10pm

Baby number two finally agreed to let me take off my diaper and run bareback into his sister’s room.

8:22 PM

I lie down in the hallway to rest for a few minutes while the children communicate through the intervening bedroom walls.

8.45pm

Here, everyone is asleep, myself included. This final scene obviously takes place in my room and I’m sure Mr. Dad will be happy to put his brats back in their respective beds when he gets back.

Photo credit image of one: Prostock-studio

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