The Emergency Contact

It’s 7:03am.

Someone is already crying.

Could be me. Could be the seven-year-old, who’s just realised it’s Thursday (which apparently now qualifies as a hostile event).

Or it could be the toddler, who is currently naked from the waist down and furiously pointing at a slice of toast like it personally betrayed her.

I’ve had four hours of broken sleep.

Half a cup of cold tea.

A questionable odour in the hallway that I really hope isn’t what I think it is.

And I’ve just remembered:

PE kit.

Shit.

The school expects her to bring it in every week, as if I’m not already juggling dietary textures, emotional regulation, unexpected smearing incidents, and the fact that one of my children is currently only communicating in squeaks and pointy stabs of fury.

I dig under a pile of unmatched socks and forgotten paperwork and find half the PE kit. The other half is either at school, in the laundry, or lost to the same parallel universe as my dignity and will to live.

She sees the kit.

Her face drops.

“I don’t want to do PE,” she says.

“I know,” I reply, gently. “But it’s on your timetable.”

She’s already shutting down.

I can see it, the tension in her jaw, the twitch of her cheek, the barely-there breath-holding that means she’s holding it all together with invisible thread.

“They said we all have to do it. They said it’s fun,” she mutters.

And there it is: the lie that breaks the day before it even starts.

Because it’s not fun. Not for her.

She doesn’t do “just take part.”

She doesn’t not care.

For her, there’s always a winner and a loser, and if she loses, the world shatters. Again.

We tried sports days.

We tried “low-pressure” PE.

We tried gentle encouragement and firm routines and “it’s okay to sit out if you need to.”

And then they changed the rules, one year, she got to leave the classroom first for sports. The next year? They forgot.

She didn’t.

She panicked.

She couldn’t recover.

Now we avoid it entirely.

And the school still sends the reminders.

And I still feel like I’m failing, even though I know I’m not.

Meanwhile, the toddler is running in circles wearing one sock, covered in something that may or may not be porridge, and making loud noises that mean something but I haven’t cracked the code yet.

She’s non-verbal, very pointy, and extremely expressive.

She doesn’t tantrum. She declares war.

And when her world shifts , even by a hair, she lets me know the only way she can:

Throwing herself to the floor, flailing like a wild fish, or if it’s a really bad morning…

she paints with poop.

And this is not a morning I have time for surprise artwork.

Still, I manage to dress her, dodge a headbutt, clean what I hope was just dried banana off the bathroom wall, and find the seven-year-old’s shoe under the sofa, next to a chewed pencil and my crushed spirit.

And then, a miracle, a moment of grace.

The seven-year-old sits at the table, toast in hand, and whispers,

“I like it when it’s just us in the morning. Before school happens.”

Same, kid.

Same.

We don’t do mornings.

We do survival.

And sometimes, if the stars align, we do toast with chocolate spread.

And as if the universe wasn’t already having a laugh, it’s also someone’s birthday.

The toddler, my chaotic little starfish, is officially four today.

Which means nursery starts next week.

Which means I’ve already emotionally braced for a full-body meltdown before we even reach the front gate.

We’ve been prepping, if you can call it that.

Driving past the nursery.

Practising the coat peg.

Putting her snack in the same bloody Paw Patrol lunchbox until she stops throwing it.

She still signs “no” every time I say “nursery.”

Sometimes she just glares at the front door and points at me like I’ve personally betrayed her entire belief system.

And yeah, I’m scared.

I’m scared for her.

Because even though she can’t say it yet, I know how much she feels.

She’s sensitive.

She notices everything, tone, mood, texture, sound.

She cries when other people cry.

She refuses to walk into rooms that smell different.

She knows who she is. She just can’t explain it to anyone yet.

And I’m scared because I know what comes next:

The guilt.

The worry.

The early pick-ups.

The phone calls.

The plans that don’t go to plan.

The tiny wins that no one else will ever understand, like putting her coat on without protest, or walking through the nursery door without going rigid like a mannequin in protest.

I want her to be ready.

But the truth is, I’m not ready.

I’m not ready to hand her to strangers.

I’m not ready to explain her again.

To sit in another room with another clipboard and answer questions that sound like, “What’s wrong with her?” even when they mean, “How can we help?”

So no, we don’t do mornings.

We do complex logistics wrapped in toast and silent prayers and tiny battles no one else can see.

And today, like most days, we do our best.

Crumb-covered.

Unbrushed.

Unfiltered.

Surviving.