Beck Vass: It's Christmas and I'm failing as a mum

Despite all my efforts, my kids don't listen, they don't respect anyone or anything, writes Beck Vass.

This week, Beck Vass had to bake biscuits to say sorry for being a psychopath.

My hands have just stopped shaking after a surge of mum-adrenaline. Mum-adrenaline is like regular adrenaline but it causes more extreme reactions.

That's what I am telling myself anyway because I have just disgraced myself because of it.

Our neighbours are doing a rebuild on their home.

This home sits 1.5m over the fence from us and is quite high at one end of the property.

The builders seem like good sorts.

In my defense, I'd had a pretty rough day yesterday. I was busy making the kids' dinners, along with a meal for a friend who had just had a baby, as well as a dinner for us for two nights because we had a school show to be at right on dinner time.

As I had too much on the go, and three kids to look after, the older two (7 and 4) ignored my instructions to stop playing with the Christmas tree decorations.

I found three broken. The decorations weren't important, it was the principle of it just being another thing the kids have done against my wishes, and more things being broken at their hands.

I stood at the sink at the end of the day with tears pouring down my cheeks, too tired to even growl at them.

Despite all my efforts, my kids don't listen, they don't respect anyone or anything, I'm failing as their mum and the general "woe is me" that happens when you get in that dark place on a bad day when you're mostly just really tired.

Then, they pulled off the little door that our Elf on a Shelf came to visit through. It was stuck to the wall with Blue-Tac and I had told them not to touch it or it would lose its magic and they pulled some paint off the wall when they did it.

That thing was a portal to the North Pole and they touched it and caused more damage to our home!

Now I have to threaten to cancel Christmas again.

Moral of the story is: It's a stressful time of year. The kids are waking up at stupid o'clock and going to bed late because it's too light and hot and generally everyone is pretty damn scratchy.

So, when I was hanging out the washing and I noticed a sheet of aluminium at our washing line, where I had been standing moments earlier and where the kids often play as I do so, rage boiled up from my stomach.

This could have caused some real damage to the kids or myself.

When I grabbed it, I realised what those sharp edges could have done to our baby's soft skin and I charged off up the drive ready to explain how dangerous it was, but found no one.

So I rang the cellphone on the fence whiteboard and left a message with a voice clearly shaking with rage. I wasn't rude, just said I wasn't impressed.

I messaged my husband, furious, with a photo.

He replied: "I put that there last night."

Well, that's embarrassing.

I rang the builder a second time and he answered and I explained and apologised. He said not to worry, that they are used to getting the blame for everything.

So is my husband. I don't know why I changed my method for one morning but there you go.

So I'm now making some biscuits to say sorry for being a psychopath.

For the builders, not the husband.