Secret Handshake.

I think we mothers should have a secret handshake for those days when we are feeling a bit crap. Those days when it's all feeling a bit much and you just want to tell someone but of course you don't want to betray your child by saying that they drive you crazy when they say they don't need to wee and then wee all over the floor or your new(ish) jeans. If we had a handshake it would mean that you could give it as a greeting to a mum at the shops or in the school yard and she'd understand without you having to say a word. It could replace the looks we so often shoot at each other when asked how we are, that slightly desperate feeling which we can sometimes detect.

I know I feel the immense pressure to be perfect, in particular because I stay at home, people seem to assume that I love it and I'm the perfect Stepford wife and mother. I'm a forgetful, disorganised and stressed mother, I have no time to myself, and what time I do have I'm trying to divide between six or seven different things, blog, book, phone friends and personal hygiene(my legs are like a gorillas). So sometimes at the school when one of the other mum's looks longingly at my little guy in his pram I have to fight the urge to ask them do they ever feel like running away, and sometimes I think I can sense it in the other mothers. So a handshake or secret code word would clarify matters and we could support our sisters in their time of need.