I’ll never forget the look on his little face. There we were the two of us, in the kitchen. I was busy making dinner, trying to serve the food, and simultaneously get the pots and pans washed up as I went along.

Recently, my children have suffered from my wilful mismanagement of videos & video games, and are constantly snacking, fighting, and forgetting any house rules. Yes, it’s come to this.

Like many Irish people, the last time I have actually paused for breath in a conversation and listened to someone uninterrupted, was back in 1982.

I never knew that caring too much about my children could be a problem.  Recently, I was helping my 8-year-old daughter with her homework.

The most common topic of conversations I have with my friends is how we don’t see enough of each other. Life is so busy for everyone, now we are a certain age.

It was roughly ten days into the ‘Covid-19 Lockdown’ when I had my first meltdown. And when I say meltdown, I mean a full scale ‘don’t look Mammy in the eye, she's gone a little unhinged’ type meltdown.