Katyboo1’s Weblog

I know this is the third blog of the day, but this is a crisis.  This is a blog or kill your children blog.  I don’t want to kill my children, well I do actually, but I am hoping that it will pass.  This is why I am pouring my soul out to you now.  This is a blog in agony, a soul in torment.  This is a woman who dare not go into the kitchen to start preparing tea because there are just way too many shiny, pointy things that can easily be used as weapons in there.

Well, the children are back from school and the farm and nursery and I’ve already raised my voice several times.  I dream of a day when I don’t have to shout like that Sargeant Major from ‘It ‘Aint ‘Alf ‘Ot Mum’.  It’s unlikely to happen before my voice box wears out.  it’s almost inevitable that one day I will sound like Stephen Hawking.

I picked up Tallulah, who, as predicted had stepped in a puddle in her brand new, blue leather t-bar shoes at exorbitant amount from Clarke’s.  Her socks were drenched, but it was alright she told me because not only had daddy let her wear whatever she liked this morning when he got her up, his largesse also extended to the fact that she was wearing yesterday’s socks once again: ‘So you see Mama, you don’t have to be cross because I still have a clean pair in my bag.’ Oh! That’s all right then.

She had a lovely time, as exhibited by the huge amounts of straw she had in her hair.  Her hair is straw coloured anyway, and extremely curly, so it was very hard to make out what was straw and what was hair.  Add that to the fact that she was the only child on a rainy, farm kind of day in full uniform with her name badge crumpled and upside down, welded indelibly to her new summer frock and it just made me proud, proud, proud.

I ignored all this in a jolly; ‘never mind.  We’ve made our bed and now we must lie in it sort of way.’ And asked her if she’d had a good day.  Please bear in mind the constant barrage of information, questions and excitable squeaks I’ve had to put up with on the subject of farms, school trips, farm school trips and trips to the farm with the school this week and you will understand my amazement when she looked at me with shining eyes and said: ‘I saw the biggest worm in the world on my way to school today!’  My gast was truly flabbered.

I asked her how the farm went, thinking a direct question might be easier.  She was too busy fishing hundreds of tiny white stones, like the ones you get in those weird gravestones out of her book bag to show me instead.  By the time we were half way round the school to pick up Tilly I finally got her to concentrate on the farm trip.

Me: ‘Tallulah! Concentrate for a minute (this as she is gaily squelching along throwing fistfuls of small stones like confetti) and stop that! How was the farm trip?’

Tallulah: Looking around vaguely as if she can’t quite put her finger on it; ‘Oh! Yeah! It was alright.  I collected a load of sheep dust.’

Me: ‘Sheep dust?’

Tallulah: Well bored with the whole thing now.  Trying to sidle off to pick up a broken hair slide from the playing field in the hope I won’t notice.  I do.  She is very disappointed.  We have a small aside where I remind her that she is only allowed to pick up jewels and money.  She is not impressed.  ‘Yeah! Sheep dust.  You know.  Anyway. I lost it all.’

Me: ‘Oh!  Tallulah?’

Tallulah: Now trying to pick bits of dead flower petal off a bush; ‘Ummmm?’

Me: ‘Put that down immediately.  What is sheep dust?’

Tallulah: Looks up at the sky in utter amazement that I don’t know what sheep dust is; ‘Well.  You know. It’s the fluff from a sheep isn’t it? Sheep dust.’

Me: ‘You mean sheep’s wool?’

Tallulah: ‘Yes’ This rendered in the manner of someone with vastly superior knowledge who knows that sheep’s wool is just the square’s way of saying it and that she is way, way cooler than me.

Me: ‘Oh! So did you actually see any animals at the farm?’

Tallulah: Examining her nails and coughing: ‘Yes.  We saw piglets and they were this tiny (holds thumb and forefinger in a circle about the size of a twenty pence piece).

Me: ‘Really? Piglets that tiny?’

Tallulah: ‘Ummm…No actually they were about this big.’ (holds hands to show something the size of a large Cornish pasty; ‘And then we saw some about this big (holds hands to indicate regular piglet size), and some pig mama’s and some pig dadas, and some horses and some chickens and some sheep and we went on a tractor ride and we did lots of running, and that was it really.  It was alright.’

So. There you have it.  Miniature pigs, sheep dust and enough disdain to make a diva weep with envy.  Glad that cost seven quid.

When we finally got home she shook her strawy hair all over my clean hall floor, stamped her muddy feet all over my clean hall mat and demanded to know why she couldn’t do her story sack now, and where her apple juice was.  This was at the same time as Tilly was looking petulant because I’d just found out that Brownies have decided in their largesse that the bowling trip that they made sound so free and simple last week is now to be complicated by the fact that they don’t want to hire transport, so all the girls must get there and back under their own steam. 

This is a problem for me as a) drop off is right at the time I should be feeding children, b) pick up is right at the time that Oscar should be asleep in bed, c) I don’t drive and can’t afford four taxis so that Matilda can go to bowling for ‘free’, d) Jason is camping all weekend and will be away with the car even if I did drive, e) mum and dad are away all that weekend and will be using their car to transport antiques on Friday.  I really, really hate Brownies.  I hated going to Brownies myself, and now I hate taking Tilly to Brownies.  That might make me a bad parent, but frankly I don’t care.

While the girls were exhibiting large amounts of hair flicking petulance, I was still wrestling the buggy indoors while Oscar was trying to exit it shouting: ‘Out! Out! Telly! ‘ilk (milk)! Telly!’ and getting hysterical because he was still strapped in and was slowly garrotting himself whilst also managing to twist his ankle up onto the bar that stops him falling out and killing himself.  Needless to say I wasn’t feeling particularly ‘joy to the world’ at this moment and made my feelings felt quite plainly by shrieking like a banshee.

I now feel hugely ashamed of myself, but then when I look back at what I’ve written I do feel that there were slightly extenuating circumstances.  I then had to deposit all the children in a clean and tidy manner in front of the television while I cleaned all the mud and straw from the hall, put away all the pictures, notes, story sacks, book bags, wet farm related clothing and other paraphernalia.  I had just cleaned the debris up when I picked Tallulah’s book bag up to put it in the cupboard.  It was at this point that all the little white stones that she hadn’t scattered about at school fell out all over the kitchen floor and table.  I got down on my hands and knees to pick them up, which is where she found me when she came in to demand to know the reason why I hadn’t sorted out her apple juice yet.  I’m afraid to say I had another mini shout, and she went back to the television, not before smiling sweetly at me and telling me that she had only just noticed how lovely my hair was.  This was presumably because up till that point she hadn’t had the good fortune to witness my scalp at face level due to the fact that I don’t like to spend much of my life kneeling on the kitchen floor.

They are now watching Horrid Henry.  Tallulah is taking notes.  Tilly is less sulky about the bowling trip because I have said I will come up with plan Z.  Juice has been supplied, Oscar has ‘ilk and is in bed for a nap, because I have to take and pick Tilly up from Brownies tonight because Jason is going out, and it is right around Oscar’s bed time yet again.  He needs a little fortification for staying up late.  I have to think of something lovely and simple to cook for tea because it has to be early tonight thanks yet again to Brownies, and all I want to do is curl up in a corner and wail.  I thought Brownies were supposed to be helpful.  I’m going to write a letter to Brown Owl.