You've Got Your Hands Full

Thursday 27th November

There's something about the upcoming festivities that means that money is suddenly tight everywhere. And if it wasn't already, then things are bound to happen that mean that money suddenly begins haemorrhaging out of your account.

Last week my laptop gave up the ghost and died. After a long battle with power leads that seemed incapable of being bent more than twelve times without internally snapping (kind of defeating the idea of a portable and, er, moveable contraption), we had finally bought a new lead instead of repairing the old one again. That was all too much and in some kind of strop or statement to the world, the mother board just keeled over and stopped working. Now, I'm not blaming her. I see her point exactly - in fact, I'm a little jealous myself - but you'd think that something of that value and capacity would last more than a measley two years. Two years! So I am currently undergoing a period of mourning and having to endure sharing (((shudder))) Richard's desktop to communicate with the outside world.

Then, on our lovely shiny nearly-new car with electric thingies all over the place, some idiot reversed it into a stop sign. I mean, it's got reversing sensors for goodness sake! How could I they have not missed it? Some people. Tch.

All of which was topped off by a much less expensive, but still very irritating incident when a chid who will remain lifeless nameless decided, during bath time, that it would be a good idea to take all the clean dry towels off the clean dry towel shelves and dump them in the wet dirty bath water then dump them back out again onto the bathroom floor. At the risk of becoming monotonous - why? WHY? That's more hours of work, wringing and drip-drying, and spinning and tumble drying on things that were already clean. Whyyyy?

Sunday 23rd November

Breakfast time:

Richard: CRASH! We do not balance the honey on top of the marmalade, it will fall.

Me: SCOOBY! We do not put our tongues in the jam jar, we will spread germs and get sticky faces.

Turtle: PO! We do not wash our pits in the sacred pool of tears.

(They watched Kung Fu Panda twice this weekend)

Lunchtime:

Turtle: Mummy, how many days is it till Christmas?

Me: Erm...thirty-two

Turtle: How many days is it till December?

Me: Erm...seven

Turtle: So how many days is it till my birthday?

Me: Errrrm...forty-one

Scooby: And how many days is it till we are dead?

Me: Er...?

Tea time:

Baby: (scream)

Me: Okay, do you mean you want more? More? Mmmmmmore? Do you want more? Mmmmohhhhhh...?

Baby: (cocks his head on one side like a bird and points at the sandwich like I'm stupid)

Me: Yes, you can have more. Say mmore. Mmmoh. Mmmmohhhhhh.

Baby: (relenting on his silence just to shut me up) Mnah.

Me: Yey! Good boy! Did you hear that boys, Baby said his first word, he said 'more'!

Baby: (lighting up as he realises the whole family is focusing in on him)

Turtle: Hooray!!!

Baby: (misses his cue to start clapping and puts his hands in the air instead)

Everyone: Baby is...soooooo big!

Baby: (hands in the air again)

Everyone: Soooo big!

Baby: (starts clapping)

Everyone: Hooray!!

Baby: (unspoken dawning of the realisation that actually everyone else is merely a puppet in his hands and he could do with the whole family exactly as he wills...)

Tuesday 18th November

Last night I came home from a friends house and found snow in my laundry room ('room' is an exaggeration - it used to be a toilet cubicle).

'Ahh,' I thought. 'Snow. How lovely. Wait, no...'

Of course it wasn't. I switched the light on, took a deep breath and was gas-fumed by the smell of non-biological detergent. And I don't even buy the power, I get the tabs. Someone had been very busy.

Whoever it was (and my money's on Snotmee), had very thoughtfully used some of the decimated tabs to try and wash something, which turned out to be a school jumper.

Now, I'm all for the children helping with the housework. I have a list of chores up that they do in return for stars, which they exchange for points, which they exchange for prizes - it's less complicated than it sounds - but this definately wasn't on the list. In fact, laundry is the one single household job I actually enjoy doing because you get to fold it and iron it while sitting on your behind and watching television.

What confused me the most was that whoever had done it had left the door open on the washing machine, and there was soapy water sitting inside the drum, and (I discovered when I tried to hoover the floor) more water on the carpet. You see, I have tried many times to open a washing machine mid-cycle, and there is no physical way of doing it. Not even if your washer explodes and dies halfway through a wash with lots of important items still inside it (that happened when I was a student). Not even if you're talking with your husband in the kitchen and you suddenly realise that his hand-held computer is being flung round on spin-cycle along with his work clothes (that happened in our last house). If a washing machine has water in it, there is no way on this green earth it will let you get that door open.

Unless you're a five year old child.

I really think that all those scientists who feel that they have all the basic proponents that will lead to the cure for cancer should bring them to my house, leave them in a high cupboard, sit in another room with a cup of tea, and wait for that five year old to conduct an experiment that will lead to the impossible. I mean, it's got to lead to a way of making me money enriching the world one day. It's cost me enough in make up, liquid soap, washing powder and other smearable products.

Oh, and by the way, I cut my finger today while putting salt on my mashed potato. Now that has to be a record somewhere.

Thursday 13th November

About ten days ago, Richard and I were plunged into the middle of our very own mystery. He was making sandwiches and after a bit of rummaging in the fridge, he said 'Where's the pickle?'

I refrained from saracasm, only slightly rolled my eyes and sighed a little bit and said 'Um, is it not there in the fridge?'

He refrained from sarcasm, only slighly rolled his eyes and sighed a litle bit, and said 'Um, no, that's where I've been looking.'

My internal whiner was starting ('Why am I the only one in this house that can ever find anything, why is it always me that has to look, why can people not look more than a few centimetres around the general area where something might be, etc, etc) but my outward me sucked it up because I hate nagging, and went to help him find it.

I found a few interesting things in the fridge, but no pickle. So maybe, I thought, we haven't opened the jar yet and it's still in the cupboard. We looked in all the cupboards, and no pickle. We searched through all the unlikely spaces in the kitchen, and found some more interesting things, but no pickle.

Eventually, we had to give up the Great Pickle Hunt, but we were both pretty baffled. I knew I'd bought some, Richard knew he had opened and used it a couple of days ago, and now it was nowhere to be seen.

Cut to today, we were performing the Mediocre TV Remote Hunt. It's called mediocre because when you do something a couple of times a day, it ceases to be great. It's very difficult to summon up energy for it, it's not interesting or perplexing, it's just dull. We covered the usual - the floor, the mantelpiece, the dining room - so moved on to looking under and inside the furniture. I was stuffing my hands down between the sofa cushions when I felt something cold and hard. I bet you can guess what it was.

Well, you're wrong, because it was a potato.

But yes, next to the potato, was the missing jar of pickle.

I checked again to make sure there wasn't anything else down there - a knob of butter, some grated cheese, or a can of baked beans - but that's all I found. Apparently, that's all you need when you have a potato - a jar of pickle.

We asked the kids and they all unanimously agreed that Snotmee was responsible (he has a lot to answer for, whoever that guy is) and the matter was laid to rest.

Richard felt justified that for once the thing he was looking for genuinely hadn't been there, and I am equipped with the knowledge of a new hiding place should Snotmee return to the house to mess with more of our stuff.

Tuesday 4th November

Tonight we went to a fantastic firework display. It was up the road at Heysham Free Methodist Church (who apparently, according to the local free paper, who wrote a lovely but glaringly incorrect piece about our new church, we are a faction of) and was executed by a semi-professional pyrotechnic, so well-worth seeing. Baby, who was only ten days old last time we went to a firework party, was awed by the sight of so many pretty sparkles, owing to his obession with overhead lights (he likes to switch them on and smile, then off and frown, on and smile, etc, and I'm just hoping it doesn't lead to some uncontrollable form of OCD when he gets older).

In addition to the display, there was hot food, a tuck shop, a drama presentation and crafts, led by a lovely lady who didn't bat an eyelid when Turtle asked if he could use the resources to make a light sabre instead of a rocket, and handed him several sparkly pipe cleaners to entwine together.

The boys filled themselves on burgers and hot chocolate and we caught up with a few old faces. It's always an interesting experience being in the Free Methodist churches, because my family have been involved in them for years, and Richard's dad was a minister at a couple of them, so lots of people know who we are even if we don't know them. I have many a lovely conversation with people whose faces I recognise but whose names are a mystery, who ask me how my grandma/dad/father-in-law/little brother is, and I have to reply in the vaguest of terms because I don't know what their relationship to the aforementioned relative is, and how much detail they really want to hear. I even met a guy who said that the last time he had seen me was when I only had two chidren and was pregnant with my third. I was very tempted to ask him if that meant he was one of the many midwives, student nurses or paediatricians who had entered the room in the twenty-three minutes while I had my legs in stirrups trying not to push and waiting for the mobile scanning unit to confirm whether the second twin had turned to be head down, but I restrained myself instead and told him he must be mistaken.

Anyway, after a very smooth, fun-filled night, something had to go belly-up and at the moment we were about to leave, Richard realised he couldn't find his keys. He had met us in the car park when we arrived because he'd come straight from work, and helped me to get the kids in. So we, and many willing volunteers (who were the last ones left and waiting to close up the church and go home), traced his path from the car to the church, from the church to the field where we had stood watching fireworks, back to the church, around every room in the building, and back again. The boys were very good in the meantime, even Baby who must have been wondering what happened to his bed time. The older three hovered in and out of the entrance, staying in sight, and just at the moment I turned around to tell them not to run on the patio, there was a stumble and a fall and a face hit the paving stones.

I ran to Crash as fast as I could, thinking he had grazed his palms, but no, his hands hadn't even touched the floor. Instead, he'd caught it with his head. As I rolled him over, waiting for him to let out the cry he was sucking air in for, I literally saw the bump, Wiley Cayote-style, raise up from his head and turn greyish-blue. I picked him up and ran back in.
The crowd who were anxiously fretting over the lost keys, were now raised to a new frenzy of mild panic as we walked past people and their eyes widened in horror. The kitchen ladies produced a cold wet tea towel and an ice pack as if by magic and one rushed to get her car to take us to A&E. Everytime I peered back under the ice pack, the bump seemed to have expanded, until half his forehead was pushing out forward and his eye had changed shape a bit. Thankfully, Richard reappeared with the lost keys, and was able to take Crash to casualty in the van, while I took care of the other three, leaving the concerned onlookers free to go home and be contacted a couple of hours later to be told he was given the all clear by the doctor and sent home again.

In fact, when he got home later, he was able to give me a clear description of what the doctor said ('Oh dear, what a big bump!') and of the different toys he played with in the waiting room. His only concern was when I showed him his head in the mirror and he held his finger to the bump and said 'Mummy, I want it bigger and bigger and bigger!' I think he watches too much Tom and Jerry.

Oh, and the location of Richard's keys? Well, it would be far too embarrassing for him if I told you that after a twenty minute search, he suddenly remembered that when he had helped me get the children out of the car, he had swapped his jacket, so I won't say a word.

Monday 27th October

How to make Stewed Mother

You will need:

Dried-up Horlicks
Golden syrup
Filter coffee
Vitamin pills (yes, my heart stopped at the sight of those too)
Strawberry Nesquik
Chicken Cup-a-soup

Crackers
Chocolate sauce

Strawberry sauce
Four individual sachets of sugar
A potato peeler (NOTE: not a knife, because everybody knows Mum goes ballistic at the sight of you using a knife. So a potato peeler is sooo much better...)

Stir it together until it looks like this:

Then make sure you track through as much of it as possible so the mixture can be evenly distributed throughout the house:

(Thankfully the recipe ends here - I caught them before they worked out how to turn the oven on, or before they ate any of it. Although in hindsight, maybe that was a bad thing - maybe it would have cured them from ever stepping foot in the kitchen again...)

Saturday 25th October

What's going on?

He needed a little help from his brothers

And of course, he preferred the boxes to the gifts

The favourite present - a helium-filled Elmo

Wheels courtesy of Grannie and Grandad

It took a little damage control to keep him off the candle, but he did like the cake too.

Friday October 10th

I have outdone myself and have managed a feat any parent would be proud of. I have made myself seem some sort of earth mother.

Today, after weeks of build up and anticipation, was Disney day at school. Lessons were done around Disney-fied topics, the canteen food was all cartoon themed, and everyone, teachers included, had to dress up as Disney characters. And because I wanted to prove that even though I have continually lost letters, forgotten non-uniform days and repeatedly needed to be reminded of important events, I am not the worst mother ever Turtle had asked, I decided we could make our own costumes. That’s right, even though we have at our disposal in our dressing box enough pre-made items to make a Lion King, a Woody, and a Mr Incredible, I decided to go with his request and attempt to make a Wall-E from scratch. I asked Scooby who he wanted to be and he said Goofy.

‘Are you sure? Don’t you want to be something cool like Buzz Lightyear or Lightening McQueen?’

‘No, I want to be Goofy because ee’s funny and he dances like dis (mini demonstration) and says “Gawrsh!”’

‘Okay…’

And for Crash, I pretty much made the decision myself as he is prone to change his mind every couple of hours and chose a character from his favourite film – Monsters Inc.

So I spent Thursday trawling through Morecambe’s indoor market, trying to find thick elastic, superglue, fluffy blue material and plastic teeth, and I was pretty successful too (even if I did have to buy two fluffy blue dog toys so I could rip them apart and use their pelt as shoe covers).

Then I spent most of Thursday night, through to the wee hours of Friday, putting it all together. I have to admit that compared to the other kids in their official Disney Princess and Pirates of the Caribbean costumes, they did look a bit shabby. But you know what? I’m so glad I did it. When I showed them the pieces I had for their costumes last night, they were so excited. Turtle by himself took the initiative to colour the cardboard box we were using for Wall-E, and the other two joined in, crayoning the sides and the wheels. They loved it, and before they went to bed, we laid out all the things on the floor in the lounge. Then in the morning, hey presto! There were three ready-made costumes and I’ve never seen them get ready for school faster so they could get them on. It was a bit like Christmas (and anything Christmas-like makes me feel very happy ).

And, not that I want to brag or anything, you know, but AHEM they did get honourable mention in assembly in front of the rest of the school. I don’t think any other bigger families had been crazy brave enough to try and make their own.

So here are the finished results:

Sully, Wall-E and Goofy (although if you didn't know that before I told you, I obviously haven't done a very good job!)

I could probably work out how to rotate this, but I'm tired and I can't be bothered.

Please notice the fine workmanship of the two-fingered gloves and the fact that the staples on the elastic held out till only 20 minutes before I went to pick him up.

My Goofy boy. Again with the non-rotation - sorry.

Thankfully we already had this hat - I just had to make and attach the ears.

He wore a pair of my shoes over his own shoes to get the slopey walk. I told him he should take the top shoes off for play time so he wouldn't fall over, but he assured me he could and would run in them and proceeded to lollop around the house to show me how.

My favourite blue jumper with purple spots added made a good body for Crash's costume. Halloween is a good time to get pointy plastic teeth.

Part of the decimated fluffy dogs, wrapped around a headband with silvery points (conveniently stuffed with the dogs' innards - don't share any of this with the children, will you?)

I ran out of carcass fluff to cover the whole shoes.

The whole happy crew. I made them, and their costumes too.