There is a Small person stalking off ahead of me.

She is tossing her sun-bleached hair and there is anger in her rigid legs, held in her shoulders, and the chin I can’t see.

Probably, there is muttering.

It is the scenery, and the soundtrack, of my summer.

I can feel reciprocal – and cumulative – anger boiling in my own bones, straightening my own spine, lurching up in my own chest, to my own mouth.

It has seemed like someone has constantly been flouncing, whinging or whining for at least three of the last six weeks, due variously to it not being fair, perceived slights, injuries real and imaginary, getting the wrong sandwich, not wanting do do whatever we’re doing, being too hot, being too cold, being too bored despite the myriad of adventures laid at their feet, not feeling listened to, not being the centre of my attention, wasps, being told no, having the worst mother/sister/life in the world, or losing at Uno.

Rightly or wrongly, my main aim in parenting over recent weeks has mostly been to avoid being screamed at – something I have very much failed to achieve.

When not kicking off with random negativity, the Smalls have varied the screaming across the remaining three holiday weeks through the medium of kicking each other, or kicking up a ruckus being giddy and silly and thick as thieves – to the point where I’d really rather they went back to beating each other up.

For reasons I cannot understand we have not seemed to be able to be a successful three. Any two of us can get along at one time, but all three IS APPARENTLY IMPOSSIBLE.

I, like so many other parents – so many other mothers – am TIRED.

The effort of keeping everyone happy and stable and constantly managing big emotions – from all of us – has been exhausting. Especially out of routine. We talk about the mental load of motherhood, we don’t talk so much about the emotional load. And right now, it is a LOT.

It has always seemed to me to be a great gynacolgical injustice that women hit the menopause at precisely the time girls hit puberty, and if the hormones of the last few weeks are anything to go by, BOY are the next few years going to be super fun!!!! I can’t wait.

Because already there is far more rage in family life and far less joy than I was expecting. I often wonder if that is normal, if that is my fault, if I’m doing it wrong? If other people, other children, are happier? I often fall into that familiar gap between expectation, comparison and reality.

The hole is deep, with spikes at the bottom.

And it’s not the only hole…

The other one I tumble into, often, is created in the gap between how I was parented in the 80s, and how I want to parent now. I had a wonderful childhood, don’t get me wrong, but times have just… changed. Parenting has changed.

I KNOW I don’t want to give my kids a clip round the ear, or invalidate their feelings, or demand total unthinking obedience, or withhold love until they comply. But I don’t always know what ELSE to do. I don’t always get it right. I don’t always set the right boundaries and the right consequences.

I’m all at sea with just how much parenting has evolved in the last 30 years – and the gentle parenting textbooks and articles don’t always keep me afloat – especially in the heat of the moment. The fact is that trying to raise kids with empathy through empathy is a much longer and harder road to ‘easy’ kids. Or at least it is with my kids. And waiting for them to become healthy adults at the other end currently feels like an eternity.

So here I am again, about to fall into my own special parent traps, feeling my frustration build with each stomp the Small in front of me takes away from me.

And it’s here, right here, as I teeter on my own edge, that I’ve tried to set a failsafe switch. I’ve tried to recognise this, this moment when I’m about to go over, and stop. Because I know THIS is when I have to choose.

I can shout, I can yell, I can throw myself off an emotional cliff and add to the general screaming – about under-appreciation and entitlement and respect, about how hard I am trying and how hard I am working… Or I can choose patience. I can choose love. I can hope that I am able to keep choosing it, if I practise enough. I can hope that one day, it will prove to BE enough. I can hope that a long time from now, they will look back and remember and know, and choose patience and love, too.

So I reach really deep down inside myself, and I manage to choose.

I don’t always.

But this time I push down the red mist, just, and I jog after the small, angry figure in front of me. I marvel at the beauty of her, the strong muscles, the even stronger views.

I realise she has grown in the sun. Her squidge is gone. Her shape is changing. There is a glimpse of the teen and the woman she will be.

I offer her a piggyback, while she is still small enough to carry.

She accepts.

And what we really have is a cuddle.

With that connection, our anger disperses, and the last days of summer continue.

Later, there will be time to talk about our day, what happened, and how we both handled it. For now we keep walking. Together.

Roll on Monday.

You cannot come soon enough.