To the beautiful and exhausted mum who fell asleep in her car at school pick up yesterday.

I was parked on the other side of the road as we both waited in our cars for our high schoolers to finish, you caught my eye with your cute AF mum bun that you totally pulled off as I sat there looking like something that crawled straight out of The blob’ scaring the locals.

I could see a car seat in the back of your car and as I was busy answering seventy-hundred questions from my own toddler about why the cats poop is sometimes green and if Jesus goes to big school, I looked back over to your car and instantly recognised that fight to stay awake. Your eyes kept closing and you started to lean further and further to one side until finally you drifted off into the ever elusive slumber land looking like you were suspended in mid air.

I heard the bell ring and as a thousand teenagers started pouring out of the two single gates my ‘protect ALL the mums’ instincts kicked in and I wanted to go and stand by your car shooshing each and every teenager that clumsily strolled past giving them ‘that look, you know the one that you give your kids in public that lets them know to SHUT the fuck up or you are gonna make them pay when you get home…..

The ‘Mumma gonna mess you up’ look, I know you get it!

A group of teens obviously noticed you catching a few Z’s and a few took the opportunity to start yelling and calling you sleeping beauty,(you are a hot mumma!) one even decided to pretend to knock on you car window to which the rest of them watched on and laughed.

I was pissed for a minute but I just thought back to how much of a dickhead I was as a teenager before I had kids and about how I treated adults, how I treated parents and my own mum and I wished I could go back and punch myself in the throat every time I whinged about how hard life was or how tired I was. I am sure you have those moments too now.

I didn’t realise how much my mum needed that sleep in back then and those teens don’t know either. They haven’t had to sit up all night as their baby cried trying to figure out if it was because of hunger, pain. A wet or shitty nappy of just for a cuddle.

They’ve never had to sit up for days with a sick toddler who can’t breathe and can’t stop coughing or having to rush to emergency at 3am because they have temps we can’t control.

But we have and we know.

They have no idea how much it takes to look after another human being day and night, to get up early and go through the motions day in and day out.

To Wake up, make breakfast, get them dressed, tell the kids to get ready, find the lost shoe, beg the toddler to eat the breakfast, tell the kids to get ready again.

Do their hair, make sure they brush their teeth, clean up from breakfast, yell at the kids that we are late now and to get ready.

Pack the kids bags, eat your own cold breakfast and drink the cold coffee, scream hysterically at the kids to get ready!

Those kids have not had to do this and don’t know what that is like yet but we have and we do!

I couldn’t stay mad though because girl, at least we can take a little bit of twisted pleasure in knowing that one day they may know and one day they’ll want to go back and punch their righteous teen selves in the throat too.

You deserve that kip mumma and just know that I totally fucking get it, all of us mums just get it!

You deserved to give your kid an iPad and a happy meal so you could nap in your car as you sat and waited for your older kids to come out of school because we know the afternoon is going to be as huge a shit show as the morning just as sure as I’ll be finishing that wine in the fridge off tonight after the kids finally go to bed.

So to the beautiful and exhausted mum napping in her car at school pick up yesterday, let’s do lunch and get day drunk some time and then nap the afternoon away in the car because we deserve that.

Love from every other mum who just gets it!