You've Got Your Hands Full

As our family gets bigger, and our energy supplier has decided that ours has been the elected household to supplement the world wide rising gas prices, I’m looking for ways to make money go further. So I have begun trying more of the basic-type ranges from the supermarket. Sometimes these are successful, and some are not. Sliced and grated cheese, garlic bread and big bags of unlabeled apples seem to work fine. My particular favourite is frozen peas. While we do eat a wide range of vegetables, I absolutely love the fact that there isn’t a meal is existence that can’t be bulked up in the green veg department by frozen peas. Spag Bol, a roast dinner, stir fries – you name it, you can add peas to it.

There have been a few disappointments too – the enigmatic bag of ‘citrus fruits’ can sometimes yield many wonderful seasonal varieties of small tangerines that are perfect for lunch boxes, or four large oranges that have to be cut with knives and are therefore not. I do wonder as well if the vague title means that one day we will find ourselves with a mixture of lemons and limes that we have no use for. The ‘frozen chicken pieces’ was another one. I presumed that some of it would be on the bone for variety, but no, all of it was on the bone – and more often than not, bone made up the majority of each piece. By the time I had cooked it to defrost and soften it, pulled all the meaty bits off (there’s a reason people generally don’t buy chicken wings unless they are coated with something that disguises the gristle) and recooked them into whatever meal we were having, I decided that it was benefitting us neither in time nor money, as there was less meat than buying fillets in the first place. So we’re going back to being wasteful 21st century town dwellers in that department and sticking to only buying the boneless white meat bit of the chicken(sorry farmers).

It has led me to being more creative in other departments too. The week before the school term started found me sewing up holes in the boys school jumpers where they had been chewed or – well, whatever else it is that small boys do that produces small holes in the middle of a jumper’s chest. And the trousers that I bought online for Turtle turned out to be massively long but rather than buy more, I have tightened the elasticated waist as snug as they will go, and hemmed the bottoms up, adding the words ‘You’ll grow into them boy.’ I am a dying breed, surely?

One idea that I’m sure will be brilliant, if it ever works out, is getting my hair cut for free. I haven’t had my hair cut for a whole year now, which is definitely a record even for me, so I hit upon the idea of asking the salon I normally go to if they need victims people for their trainees to practice on, and they said yes. Models (I think ‘guinea pigs’ is probably a more apt title) are needed on Wednesday nights for teaching purposes, so I figured it would solve both my hair-cutting issues at once; I don’t have to pay money for it, and they will choose how I have it cut so I don’t have to make a decision on what I want. Perfect. The only trouble is that the appointment has been moved twice now as staff go on holiday or have guest speakers in for training purposes, so I’m not sure if I’ll still be waiting this time next year with twice as many split ends for an available slot to finally come up.

Finally, my piece de resistance, today in the post, I received three brand new pairs of trainers, one each for the older boys, for free. That’s right, for free! One of my online mum friends told me about this website that had a few factory seconds that they were giving away for just the price of the postage. I dubiously looked at it, and was surprised that not only did I actually really like the designs, but their limited stock covered the exact sizes we needed - and they normally sell for over £30 a pair! When they arrived we were even more impressed that they are called ‘Inchworms’ and – get this – they can grow to a whole size bigger! That’s right, should the shoe last through a whole season of small boy abuse, they can be adjusted so they last the next season too! Can you tell I’m excited?!?

You’ll be pleased to know that we won’t always have to live frugally though. In recent discussions with the boys we’ve asked them what sort of job they’d like to be aiming for in the future. After much thought, Turtle has opted for a museum night guard, because ‘It’s really easy to do’, Scooby wants to work at McDonalds (what better way to make someone’s day than serving them food?), and Crash has his sights set on farming, which in this country is a really good stable industry with a promising.....wait. No......

We're sat at the table eating our tea when Crash's finely tuned bladder goes into action and needs emptying there and then. It would be easier if this happened every evening five minutes sooner so he went before he sat down, but nothing will tear him away from his book/toys/program a minute before he has to, so he generally waits until we've wrestled him to the table and said grace before he realises he needs to go to the bathroom. It does, however, help that it adds more minutes to his eating time as he eats at the speed of a two-day starved savage beast and then bounces on and off his chair until the others have finished and are ready for pudding, so we let the toilet trips go unchallenged.

However, on this occasion, we have nearly all finished before he reappears and he has to be called down the stairs. When he does come back, he's wearing different trousers.

'Crash, why did you change your clothes?' I ask, as he begins to wolf down his pasta.

'I did sit on the toilet but I missed a bit and it went on my trousers,' he tells me. 'But don't worry Mummy,' he continues in soothing tones, 'I put it in the washinsmurshuphl.'

(The last bit was absorbed in pasta sauce.)

'You put them in the wash basket?' I say, to clarify.

'No, in the washing fan.'

'What's the washing fan?' I ask, looking worredly at Richard.

'The spinner,' Crash says, indicating with his hands. 'To spin it round and round.'

'You mean the washing machine??'

'Yes, the washinsmurshuphl.'

I go up with a heavy heart - I know that a load has just finished in there and now it will have had weed-on trousers out on top of it all. Shall I just rinse it or put the whole thing through the wash again?

Then I see that I do not need to make the decision as Crash has taken the initiative to turn the machine on himself, and the clothes are spinning round in the mysterious 30 degree sports cycle, which I have never found a use for (I tend to stay away from anything with the word 'sports' in the description).

As I turn away, I realise that the cap is off the new bottle of non-bio liquid. The new mega-super-family-bumper-sized concentrated non-bio liquid. And the bottle is now half empty (yes, I know I could see it as half full, but in this instance, it's half empty, alright?).

'Craaaash!' I call, and he runs up the stairs, having finished his combat with the pasta.

'Yes?'

'Where's the wash liquid from in this bottle?'

We both know what the answer is, but I have to hear it on the slim chance that some of it may be redeemable.

'In dere,' he says, pointing, of course, to the soap drawer at the top of the machine.

'Noooooo,' I say.

I open it and the only dribble left is in the conditioner part of the drawer. The rest is empty, having drained into the machine. As I watch, I can see the suds building inside the drum.

I patiently explain to Crash that while I value him trying to help with my household burdens, it would be much better if just stuck to the jobs we had already assigned to him and leave anything that involves machines, fluid and no parental supervision alone. I empty the meagre contents of the conditioner drawer back into the bottle and mourn the loss of about 24 washes' worth of liquid all in one go. I change the cycle on the machine to the longest one I can find, then I sincerely pray to God that my machine will not explode nor overflow and cause any soapy water damage to the rest of the house.

Then I come down and ask Crash to clear the dinner table, which, after his demanding day of performing household chores, is clearly too much to ask, and results in an epic battle which involves the threat of stickers lost and much huffing and puffing on his behalf.

You will be pleased to know that 7kg washing machines can, remarkably, take in 24 times the required amount of liquid soap at once without blowing up or spewing their contents everywhere, but it does take at least four full-length cycles before clothes are in a wearable state and no longer covered in a soapy film which renders them impossible to dry or wear without discomfort.

This tip, along with other useful tidbits of information that I'm bound to discover in the next few months and years will surely have to be published one day into a volume entitled 'Pushing It To The Limits: Things You Never Knew You Or Your Household Appliances Were Capable Of.'