Katyboo1’s Weblog

Today has been relatively successful.  We’re going through rather a dull time here at Wheatley Towers.  Apart from the odd bout of nappy rash and some strong pineapple related cravings from the youngest member of the tribe, all is well.  This is great, but dull to read about and slightly unnerving to live through when you’re used to living up to your eyebrows in muck and bullets for months on end.  I do wonder whether we’re actually in the eye of the hurricane and as soon as Jason and I stop scurrying around like startled meerkats and relax, we will suddenly end up homeless with bird flu and botulism.  It seems likely given our track record.

This morning we got to school without a hitch despite the fact that it is Monday and Tallulah decided that she couldn’t get to sleep last night, consequently driving us all insane with her incessant bleating about; having a stick in her throat, probably, really; worrying about having a bad dream; her insistence that she might have a bone in her leg and the whining about being uncomfortable.  This one met with short shrift as she had by this time decided to wear her nightie as a turban and had it draped sideways over her head, the duvet was diagonally draped across her little toe, and her left leg was stuck artistically through the bed bars.  I pointed out that anyone else in the same situation would also feel uncomfortable, and be unlikely to be lulled to sleep.  Oddly, once I had insisted that she lay down with her head on the pillow and stuck the rest of her body under the duvet she went to sleep remarkably quickly.  This drama did take until 11.00 p.m. to unfold though, so we were all a little bleary eyed this morning.

Tilly decided to take her latest creative invention to school this morning.  She spent large parts of last week making herself a magical boat out of a cardboard box.  It is called ‘The Kingfisher’, and has gone through several incarnations.  It started out as a regular boat.  Then it got carpets.  Now it has three operating modes; fly, drive or sail.  It is held together with some very complicated looking braces which you use to propel the boat through your chosen milieu.  These seem to be made of string which is a cross between bungee elastic and dental floss.  There have been several whiplash style incidents since then which have left giant red welts across Tilly’s neck where the bungee/string has snapped and ricocheted off of her tender flesh.  Such are the hazards of inventing for a living.

My cousin Tom could tell you all about that.  He spent large parts of his childhood inventing things, and at one point announced that he couldn’t possibly get married when he grew up because a wife would just interfere with his inventions.  He needed peace and quiet and a lot of money because he wanted his own laboratory.  He decided that he was going to have a housekeeper instead, a la Mrs. Flittersnoop in the Professor Brainstorm books.  I have yet to suggest this lifestyle option to Tilly, but it just might work.  She definitely needs someone to pick up all her mess.  She did tell me at one time that she was going to be a cleaner when she grew up, but I don’t really think she has the natural aptitude for it, sadly for me.  I was hoping to take advantage of nepotism and enjoy some advantageous rates.

I was dreading the trip to school with The Kingfisher in tow and had to make several rules before we set out in order to control the chaos.  I specified that a) it must not be raining (the main constituents of the boat are cardboard, glue and paper.  I have not pointed out the unsuitability of such materials for water based activity.  It is a prototype), b) she has to carry it herself, and c) she is not allowed to wear the dangerous braces whilst out and about.  Inflicting grievous bodily harm on oneself is all well and good,  mowing down innocent members of the public is a little more problematic.  She accepted the conditions, probably because she was amazed that I had actually said yes in the first place, and she was desperate to take it out of dry dock and on its first voyage.  Much to my amazement she actually made it to school and back with the Kingfisher intact, despite this morning’s rather gusty headwinds.  I may have to buy her a barometer if she wants to take it out again.  How long it will live is another thing, as Oscar definitely has his beady eye on it.

When I was a kid my mum used to give us cardboard boxes to take out into the garden with when it rained.  These were our boats, and we had to sit in them with the lids closed and wait for the rain to wash us down the hill.  Apparently this was one of her favourite activities when she was a girl, and she claims that she once spent an entire day in such a box waiting to float to the Nile.  We never lasted that long, but we did enjoy it, and were utterly convinced that we too would sail away eventually, despite the fact that the cardboard box invariably ended up disintegrating around us, leaving us with very soggy bottoms.  I expect mum loved it.  She was inside and warm with the radio and a kettle, and we were outside hoping for the impossible for long periods of time.  In these days of plastic boxes I might even be able to convince my kids for a few hours.  Next time it rains I’m definitely going to give it a go.  Either that or I’ll get in and leave them inside.  I quite like the soothing sound of the rain on cardboard.  It takes me right back to the olden days…

Tallulah was quite well behaved at breakfast time.  It hasn’t lasted, but it was nice to have a mini break from her evil doings.  Oscar threw his toast in the air this morning and she did look at him and say: ‘When you’re fifty two Oscar you can do whatever you want, but while you’re in mama’s house you have to do what she says.’ which was quite funny and endearing.  He looked at her very seriously and then threw another bit across the table at her.  He responds well to authority figures, which is reassuring.

I was talking to my mum today about which Open University course I’m going to sign up for in October.  I am torn between doing a course about Heritage and doing the introductory course to the social sciences.  Mum suggested that I do the Heritage course, as she said if I did sociology I would find out the statistics on the number of middle children who end up becoming serial killers and when I thought about Tallulah it would only depress me!  Nice one.  Mind you, she has a point after the stabbing chick incident of yesterday.  I’ll be so depressed if she turns out to be the female equivalent of the Yorkshire Ripper.  I’ll never be able to hold my head up in the Co-op again.

Mum also told me that she has found three more large clumps of Tallulah’s hair under the sofa since we visited on Saturday.  I am amazed as you genuinely can’t tell that she has cut enough hair from her head to stuff a small commemorative pillow with.  I do wonder if she is in fact an alien being and her hair naturally regenerates as fast as she cuts it.  She’d be absolutely crap at playing Rapunzel, but otherwise this would be quite cool.  I am going to have to monitor her scissor use very carefully from now on.  She was playing hairdressers with Oscar earlier this evening and I had to keep stealing a glance at her out of the corner of my eye to make sure that she hadn’t somehow made her own scissors out of lego and baler twine and was trying to scalp him.

The girls are wildly jealous of each other at the moment which is exciting.  This manifests as out and out violence in Tallulah, who had to be warned three times this evening for threatening to pinch Tilly until she cried if Tilly didn’t do what she wanted.  Tilly on the other hand is much more sneaky and comes to see us with a list of questions such as: ‘Should Tallulah be sawing the head off that doll?’ or, ‘Why is Tallulah allowed to shave her eyebrows off?’ or, ‘Why can’t I sit under the table and eat lemons like Tallulah?’  I’m thinking of having them both pickled in brine and encased in perspex.  It should have the threefold effect of a) making them much more sanitary, b) making them fight less, and c) giving me the possibility of selling them as art works when my gallery idea gets off the ground.

While they were fighting over whose dolls’ house was the best this afternoon, Oscar managed to whip his nappy off and do a pooh on Tilly’s house, thus voting for his favourite one way or the other.  It’s hard to know if the pooh is a sign of favour or disgust in his case to be honest.  It was clear what the girls thought about it.  I was only across the hallway in the study, and had been watching events unfold with a painterly eye.  It’s the dung theme coming back to haunt me again.  I will never be free of it.

Mum and I snuck away with Oscar for a celebratory lunch at Borders this afternoon.  It was to celebrate the fact that although dung looms large, it is now no longer a part of my academic curriculum.  It was very civilized and we ate sandwiches and buns and drank coffee.  Oscar loves Borders the way that Tilly used to love McDonalds.  He recognises the logo and smiles.  It’s very comforting that I’m training him up to be a boy who lunches.  There are a proliferation of ladies who lunch, but I don’t see why boys can’t join in as well.  Once we had removed the cucumber from his elbow, he was just as elegant and well behaved as the rest of us.  Which actually isn’t too difficult when it’s me and mum as we are very uncouth.  I spilled my coffee down the front of my jeans and filled my shoes before we’d even started, and then Mum got a bit of Danish pastry in her hair, so all was well.  We like to relax into our food.  I blame catering for small children for my lazy table etiquette. 

I will never be invited for tea with the Queen or Helen Mirren for that matter.  What with my allusions to Celine Dion’s potential demise it’s unlikely that I’ll get an invite there either.  What will I do if I ever get to be a celebrity?  The only people who’ve been nice to me have been Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer and they’re both dead.  Mind you, I did have a nice dream where David Tennant as Doctor Who rescued me from a spooky Victorian mansion and took me to a sushi bar last night.  So perhaps I’ll be alright for invites after all.