Let us just start by saying that in my experience, confessions aren’t heard on a Sunday. I am already outside of the box with this topic. I also should say that children this age (6 months and two years) don’t know it is Sunday. They will one day. Sunday won’t always be like this. I will probably miss this madness!

(This confusion will become a clearer mess soon! ).

Little babies don’t know that on a typical Storybook Sunday, we should be:

1. Adventuring

2. Relaxing

3. At mass…

I have not always been a lover of Sunday. As a kid I dreaded the roast beef indigestion and Sunday drive. As a student I hated the approaching Monday morning blues. As a teacher, I have learned to love what Sunday means. Peace!

However, as a parent, peace is suddenly not a Sunday certainty anymore. In fact, it is a luxury that may only visit for a short call. Peace is a different kind of animal when you have babas. Beautiful babas, yes. Peaceful ones? Not really!

I don’t like the catholic tradition of going to confessions and tend not to do it. Today however I feel like breaking that tradition.

Bit different to a confessional box  but there you go! I am confessing via blog post, in public and not private, typed in text for all to see. On Sunday.

So here are my confessions on this day of God. ..

1. I miss chilling out! Yes, we may get The Holy Grail but if we don’t there may be precious little chill out time on Sunday. The odd golden moment does occur when we all seem happy together (sans wind, hunger, boredom) but it is a rare beast. It is still precious family time but not always very relaxing time.

2. Unless the weather is good (last Sunday week was a peach) I don’t want to venture out. I don’t particularly want to stay in with small children who need ‘airing’ but I don’t want mud and rain. Paradoxically, I really don’t want to stay in either. Go figure that one out Hawking.

3. Sunday is a day that should have a great dinner. I am into cooking and do it a lot. On Sunday, I don’t want to. I want it handed to me.

4. I know that I am not supposed to wish my life away. I love these babies more than imaginably possibly and I love their stages. Betsy is so adorable right now I don’t know if she could ever be more so. It is just the work of a magician to know that she will. Gigi is soaking up words and knowledge and every moment with her is like what I imagine Attenborough must have experienced when he met a tribe in Papua New Guinea who had never encountered members of the outside world from beyond their forest before his team.

Outstandingly amazing, touching and glorious in every aspect. So why do I even look to the future?  I just imagine Sunday morning with my husband and girls in Parisian cafés. Wandering about, discovering cities. Going to theatre. Walks in the woods. I know we can do these things now. We try our best. It doesn’t matter though. I feel a little bit selfish pushing about an unsettled baby around a Lakelands park who clearly would rather Mammy and her playmat having fun at home, yet we are trying to push Sunday excursions onto her. Therefore I confess to dreaming despite loving what they are right now. I don’t think that is wrong.

5. I confess that I don’t encourage bringing the girls to mass. Small children in a church where they don’t know what is going on and that are expected to behave for up to an hour makes no sense to me. When they are older and I can explain, yes. Right now? It feels daft. I know tons of families who do. Fair play to them. I can’t see the sense. I don’t have the courage.

6. I confess that I am on tenterhooks on Sunday mornings. The pressure of feeling we should do something and the impossible choice of what to do makes me edgy. It can all be so wonderful or it can be a disaster. I feel mild panic on Sunday morning. Spilled milk may induce hysteria.

7. Relief. I admit that I feel relief when I know the day is going well. Relief means that tension existed beforehand so I confess that Sunday serenity rests on a bed of tension.

8. I confess to being a loving Mammy who gets frustrated, tired and pained. The internal screams (but outward happyish face) seem to get more excerise on Sunday.

9. I don’t think Sunday is that special. It doesn’t seem to know it must differentiate itself as ‘peaceful’. The proof of this being that pots still boil over while you are distracted with a spit up despite it being a ‘Sunday’. Baby poo still happens on Sunday and tiredness/ grumpiness manifests itself in new forms on Sundays probably due to the pressure to be peaceful. Sunday, you need to take control and be one person to all people.

10. I cannot be alone to admitting that I miss the couple time. Sunday was our day to reconnect. Drives, lunches or whatever we chose, we did it together and it made us closer. Now we have to remember soothers,  blankets, lunches, bottles, sudocreme and God knows what else before we leave the house and despite the loveliness of our funny, sweet children we don’t really get to just be ourselves. The intensity caused by just needing to remember things is almost unbelievable. I miss the couple outside of being Mam and Dad but would never change a thing.

I know we cannot be the only ones to feel this.

Confessions are now over.

Am I absolved? Wait and see.