Jodi Bryant: This side of town, a head case

I drove home the other day and wrote an entire column in my head. But that was the trouble.

Things don't stay in my head. I will have a prolific stream of thought and then, if I don't write it down, it's gone within seconds.

What triggered this story, I don't know. Probably I spotted something out the window which led to a thought and then another and, voila, I had a story of sorts.

I guess it's something we creative minds tend to do – capture scenes and moments. Writers capture into words, photographers in images and artists portray those images in their own way.

I caught my daughter, then aged two and a budding artist, doing this in the backseat of the car as we drove along: Her arm outstretched as she tried to air-paint a scene out her window.

So although I knew I should sit straight down at my computer and spend 10 minutes tapping out the words, I had groceries to unload, a fire to light, a persistent cat to feed, dinner to cook and then, what do ya' know, Shortland Street was on …

And, come deadline day, do you think for the life of me I can even remember what the story in my head in the car was about?

So here I find myself, surrounded by three kids vying for my attention, at home while the teachers strike (and good on them!).

Well, actually, only two of them are vying for my attention. One, the oldest, is glued to the couch on his phone so, apart from the ongoing annoying commentary coming from the NBA playing out on his phone, he's not being a problem.

Then there's the twins. Is the ''terrible 10s'' an actual thing? If so, nobody told me. There's much said about the terrible twos and we made it out the other side of that unscathed, but I wasn't prepared for the terrible 10s - and times two at that.

Admittedly I'm lucky, as they are good kids. But 10 does seem to have brought out their worst behaviour. When they're out the other side and turn 11, I'm sure I'll have my angelic children back (until the next phase).

It's mostly just the normal sibling antics - the teasing and chasing and beating up, then yelling for me to come to the rescue, but it seems to have intensified.

Today, however, the boy is counting down the time until he can go meet his bros up at the skatepark, and he's following me around giving me a running update of the hours, then minutes. His sis is following me round asking for jobs she can do to earn money for a future playdate (which I still haven't okayed) that she has all mapped out and involves walking up to the $2 shop.

All this would be fine if I wasn't distracted trying to remember that darn topic I'd written out in my head.

But, while I've digressed completely off-topic, I seem to have filled the 400-word space — so thanks for bearing with me and perhaps over the next two weeks, I will have an epiphany.

I would say watch this space, but I wouldn't hold your breath.