I think I have to start seriously exploring the possibility that I may have postnatal depression of some kind.

Some days I hate myself so much.

They are coming more and more often.

Without warning.

The days I hate being me.

Today has been one of those days.

Everything has just felt so hard.

All three children are currently refusing to sleep so I feel like I am never getting a break and spending a lot of time and effort trying to force children go to sleep. It is exhausting.

All three children have colds and so the day is a constant round of nose wiping. Nose after nose after nose!

I know exactly the kind of Mummy and wife I want to be but I cannot find her any where. I plan wonderful days and adventures, activities that never unfold.

Every day I wake up determined that this day will be a new start and every day that I find myself alone with the children I find myself hating myself and the mummy I am a little bit more.

Most days I am fine. If we are out at a group or class I am fine. I more than hold it together I am an immensely proud mummy of three beautiful children.

If we have visitors here it is fine. Wednesdays and Fridays are my favourite days of the week as I am guaranteed some company and some help.

But as soon as we are home alone, behind closed doors, I seem to morph into this horrible raised voiced mother that I hate to be. I end up crying tears of frustration that I cannot seem to make it calmly through a day on my own.

I am scared that my children will hate me.

When Esther and William are naughty, I know what I should say, I know exactly what I should do to help them learn from the situation but before I can act in the way I know is right, I hear myself screeching at them and saying things to them that I swore I never would.

It is really starting to get me down.

I have so many ideas of things I would like to do with them but cannot make them a reality. I just do not have enough arms.

Matilda likes to be held. She deserves to have her cuddles but at the same time I want to get mucky and messy with Esther and William. And I just can’t!

Often Esther and William want to be carried and cuddled whilst I am holding Matilda and sometimes I just physically can’t.

When we go out I wear Matilda but I try not to at home as she is getting to be a big girl and my back often hurts. Also I think she needs to be out of a carrier more often than in one as she grows.

A lot of the problem I think is there is no one that understands. David, my husband, has never found anything hard in his life and cannot begin to understand why I am struggling. And even he has never dealt with all three of them on his own for longer than an hour. He has never had to try and feed Matilda, play with William and stop Esther from being naughty all at the same time. He has never driven a car on his own with one of them escaping out of their car seat, another demanding food and the third screaming because she hates being in her car seat. I do not know anyone I can talk to who does what I am trying so desperately hard to do.

It is a lonely lonely job and sometimes I just long for a cuddle from someone who understands.

Someone to say that it has happened to them and there is light at the end of the tunnel. Someone to tell me what to do when they all need me to do different things all at once?

Instead I have well meaning people telling me what a good mum I am when I know that really I am not.

I’m just not.

My toddlers don’t listen to me and my baby doesn’t get to hear me enough. I feel like I am not meeting anyone’s needs and I cannot even rememvber what my own needs are.

Writing my blog helps when I am feeling low which is why I am thinking that counselling could be a way forward for me. I think the time has come to talk to someone proper?

There is so much I do not make public on the blog that I am sure it would help to talk about.

My life has always been a complicated one. There is lots that I choose not to make public on this blog that it might just help to talk about.

I met David in May 2007 and so much has happened in a very short space of time. My feet have not touched the ground.

Meeting David, parents moving to Spain, sister moving to Australia, IVF, failed IVF, twin pregnancy, major abdominal surgery while pregnant, premature birth, NICU, parenting premature twins, surprise singleton pregnancy, wedding, new baby, three children under two, moving house with three children under two.

I have never had chance to stop and think, let alone to talk.

I still don’t really have any time but I think I need to talk.

Have you had counselling? Did it help you?

The past week I have been mostly preoccupied with finding Esther and William the right preschool.

I think as a teacher and a mummy it makes choosing an educational setting really hard as you know what you would do if you had a group of small children in your care all day.

You would want them to have fun and to play but you would also want them to learn.

Esther and William are learning all the time. Their capacity for new things amazes me. They literally learning something new everyday.

Things we are working on at the moment are colours, numbers and letters.

They are confident with their colours now with their current favourites being purple and black.

At only just two years old Esther and William can confidently recite numbers to 10, are beginning to understand counting and can definitely count up to 3 objects, possibly 4.

If you tell Esther and William a letter sound they will tell you a word beginning with that sound. They also kind of know the order of letters in the alphabet.

Most of this knowledge has come from one man. AJ Jenkins. We watch his videos on You Tube and listen to his CDs in the car and we all think he is rather amazing.

I wish I had known about him when I was teaching as my Year 2 class would have loved his stuff and it woud have really helped with their learning.

Here are some of our favourites

The Animal Sounds Song is the first AJ Jenkins song that we discovered. We used to watch it every day before tea to practise signing animals when we were first learning BSL. Esther and William loved listening to the song and showing off their signs.

The Shape Song was our next discovery and introduced Esther and William to simple shapes though they were more excited about spotting the car at the end of this video.

AJ Jenkins writes and performs a range of phonics and alphabet songs. What we love about them is his correcty pronunciation of the letter sounds and that he uses the same objects to represent each letter through all of his songs. This consistency has really helped Esther and William to learn the words to the songs and so begin to become familiar with the alphabet, letter sounds and at least one word that begins with each sound.

This is a great video for learning to recognise and recite numbers to 10.

And Where’s The Monkey has helped Esther and William to learn positional language. Prepositions of Place. It also just makes them laugh which is so important too.

The CD we now have in the car features this great song about things you might see in the garden.

The man I think is a genius. He has made early learning almost rock star cool. He has a lovely voice that is nice to listen to. We have his music on the car when we want to enjoy some calm time, just as we watch his videos when we are settling down for tea.

I think music is a great aid for learning and obviously AJ Jenkins agrees with me. If you have babies or young children you should really check him out.

Here at Edspire we are huge fans!