Thursday 22nd January – Typical Morning Boo Household

Why is everything to do with children such a bloody ball ache?  Such a ball ache that my balls are aching like billio and I don’t even have any.  That’s how much of a ball ache they are.

Nothing, nothing is easy or straightforward or normal.

I wonder if it’s just me and my failure to make the grade as a competent adult. 

I see other mothers at school and think: ‘You look serene.  Your hair is neat, you have make up on.  You have clearly bothered to find clothes that are clean and that match.  You would never, ever be caught dead going to school wearing your pyjamas.  Does this mean that your children are good and efficient and function well in the routine you provided them with?’

On bad days I think; ‘Yes! Yes! This is the case.’  I imagine their houses as some kind of blissful minimalist zen paradise with spookily well behaved children floating around with immaculate hair and book bags full of perfect homework.’

On good days I think: ‘No! It’s just that you got up two hours before the children and worked like a dog to do all that.  Either that or you have hired help.  Possibly both.’

I’m not saying that today was shockingly bad.  Far from it.  I’ve had much worse mornings.  No today was merely a representative sample of the average day in the Boo household.  It’s sort of like one of those pond dipping exercises.  I have dropped my cardboard square over this particular morning and am holding it up to the microscope.

I set the alarm to snooze twice before I could be bothered to get out of bed this morning.  I even caught myself thinking; ‘Would it really be so bad if we were all late for school this morning? I could make up an excellent excuse, and because I’m grown up they’re so going to give me the benefit of the doubt.’  That is after all, one of the perks of being grown up, and it should be exercised regularly in my opinion.  I had just decided that we would indeed be late when I remembered that I have a hair appointment, and it is Oscar’s nursery morning.  I’m not missing that.  So I heaved myself out of bed.

I have decided that I must go back to being more adventurous with clothes.  I have a wardrobe full of lovely clothes.  I invariably wear jeans.  I flung the wardrobe doors asunder.  I stared blearily at everything.  I heard the rain hammering on the Velux skylights.  I scrambled into my jeans.

Oscar decided he did not want to go to nursery.  He popped his head over the cot bars like a demented rabbit and announced winsomely; ‘My not going to Donna’s house today.’  To which I replied: ‘There are many things in this mysterious universe that I remain ignorant of little man, but I am very sure indeed that you are going to Donna’s house today, come hell or high water.’  To which effusive speech he merely said: ‘No! My are not going. NO. NOOO. NNOOOOOO!’  I hoiked him out and wrestled him into his clothes, refusing to revisit the subject of Donna’s house any further.

Wrestling a hefty two year old into clothing is one of the parenting skills they should teach you in ante natal classes.  Hulk Hogan should run them, because you do need to learn things like how to break someone’s grip without breaking their arm, how to effect a decent half nelson, and how to make someone who is determined to be as rigid as a cat with rigor mortis bend in the middle without winding them.  You learn as you go along if left to your own devices, but a heads up would have been nice.

All this time Tallulah is in the kitchen waiting for her breakfast.  I know this because she keeps honking into the baby alarm and scaring the crap out of us.  Oscar is looking to see where the voices in the walls are coming from.  He then gets excited and wants to talk to everyone he has ever known.  I scramble downstairs with him tucked under my arm trying to explain that it is not a dial up service.  He does not get to choose who he speaks to.  He is not impressed.

He does not want breakfast.  I make Tallulah’s.  She has decided that ordinary cereal will not do.  She wants a cocktail of cereals.  I give in, because it is easier.  Oscar eyes this train of events with interest.  He now decides that he wants the same as ‘Tula’. I make his breakfast.

In the meantime Tilly slopes downstairs.  She is still being sullen teenager, despite only being nine.  She is not a huge fan of breakfasts.  She has a jelly.  I think this is probably quite bad, but it is better than nothing, I don’t have to prepare it and she does it herself.  I give in.  They are all natural, made with fruit juice, no added sugar jellies.  It could be worse.  As a teenager I insisted on drinking coffee out of cereal bowls and eating chocolate mousse for breakfast.  I do not mention this.

We are sort of all sitting at the table in vague harmony.  Tilly is trying to avoid having anything to drink.  I force her to have a glass of orange juice.  She hates me silently from across the room.  She has laser beams for eyes.  I am dust beneath her boot.  I don’t care.  The coffee has brewed.  The world is already looking like a brighter place.

Tallulah has Rice Krispies on her chin.  Oscar tells her this.  He is very impressed.  He puts Rice Krispies on his chin.  They gurn at each other across the table with cereal dripping from their chins.  I ask them to remove it.  They wipe it on sleeves before I can offer kitchen roll.  Then they play waving at each other manically with cereal flying.  I ask them to concentrate on the task in hand.  They look at me like I am an idiot.  Hours pass. Cereal is still being flung about.

Tilly throws a spanner in the works.  She has read the back of the Rice Krispie packet.  Apparently we can adopt a monkey for free.  ‘Mama? Can we adopt a monkey? It’s free.’  The small kids clamour; ‘Monkey, monkey, monkey.’  Then they start making monkey noises.  Breakfast descends into a menagerie.  I think about shrieking.  I have only had one coffee.  I say: ‘I will read it later when you get home from school.’  This means: ‘No! Never! Over my dead corpse.’  Nevertheless they are still at the stage where hope springs eternal.  This is good enough for them.

Tilly goes upstairs to brush her teeth.  Tallulah demands more cereal to flick about.  I think about saying no.  I wrestle with my conscience. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, blah.  What if she genuinely is hungry and because I say no she falls over at school and breaks a limb due to malnourishment blah? I get the extra cereal.  Oscar is now excavating something under the table.  Hours pass.

Tilly has still not come downstairs.  It has been weeks since she went to brush her teeth.  She has a timer.  She is supposed to brush them for two minutes.  She never does.  I wonder what she is doing.  I call up the stairs.  A world weary voice floats down: ‘I am, ‘sigh’, just, ‘sigh’, putting on some lip balm, ‘pfhfffffhhh’  My lips are cracked.’ Huge tut like; ‘What do you care anyway? You wish me dead. You wish that my lips would just peel off and fall on the floor and I would bleed to death.  Would you care? No. No you would not.  By the way.  Did I tell you? I hate you.’  I suggest that she might like to carry on getting ready for school now.  She wearily descends as if every step were agony.

Tallulah goes to brush her teeth.  Oscar trails behind her to ‘help Tula’.  I know I should stop him, they are an unholy alliance together. I cannot be bothered.  I need more coffee.

Tilly puts her shoes on.  She sits on the bottom step in the hall.  I enquire as to whether she is going to brush her hair today.  She thinks about it; ‘Oh! Alright then.’  Like it is a massive favour to me.  Thanks for that.

Tilly has gloriously thick honey coloured hair which is waist length.  It needs quite a lot of care.  It does not get it.  She has huge tangles in the back and bottom of her hair.  I say: ‘Please brush the tangles out carefully.’  She looks at me as if I were a total drivelling imbecile for even suggesting that she might not do it.  ‘Yeah. Alright! Urgh!’

Oscar is holding Tallulah hostage in the bathroom.  She is wailing that she is trapped.  I point out that she is three years older than him, much more cunning and for now, a bit taller.  Surely she can effect an escape.  She does.  Oscar is not impressed.

Tallulah disappears into the shoe cupboard. I can see a bottom, a pair of heels and a lot of footwear flying around.  She is muttering and wailing about boots.  Apparently we are responsible for the fact that she can only find one boot, despite the fact that there is only one shoe cupboard and all shoes live in it, and there is nowhere else to put shoes.  We may have taken a boot and stolen it in the night, just to be spiteful.  Probably I have widdled in it as well, or maybe burned it, or given it to next door’s dog.  Because that’s the type of horrible parent I am.

I go upstairs to see what Oscar is doing and avoid the recriminations. He is covering his hands in a fine layer of toothpaste.  He has only been up there on his own for two minutes.  I scrub his hands.  He tells me about his plans for the day.  These do not include going to Donna’s house.  They do include watching Wonderpets and going to granny’s to hang out with her.  He is sadly disappointed.  We go downstairs to put his shoes on.

Tallulah has two boots on.  Who knew that they would both be exactly where she left them?  Amazing.

Tilly has ‘finished’ her hair.  I look at it.  She has done the front beautifully.  The back looks like an exploded rat’s nest.  She has done the Linus shining shoes classic.  ‘I only shine the front of my shoes. I want people to like me when I come into the room.  I don’t care what they think of me when I leave.’  I plonk her down.  I brush all the tangles out of her hair.  She cries and wails and shrieks.  I deliver a lecture along the lines of: ‘I did tell you to do it yourself.  You know it hurts more if I do it for you.  You had the choice to do it yourself.  If you don’t stop shrieking I will take you to the hairdressers and make them cut it all off.’

I command Tallulah to start brushing her hair, which is a riot of curls like a giant nimbus this morning.  I chase Oscar around trying to get him to put his coat on.  This is difficult.  He does not want to put his ‘measure tape’ down.  He has important stuff to measure.  Things like the letter box and the stairs.  I finally get his coat on.

I wander into the kitchen to see how Tallulah is doing.  Her hair remains the same.  She is staring into the nozzle of the spray in conditioner, just about to squirt it into her eye.  I run forward in slow motion shouting ‘Nooooooo!’ just like in a disaster movie.  I imagine the horror if she squirts it into her eyeball.  I reach her just in time.  I start to brush her hair delivering another lecture; ‘What do you think will happen if you stare into the nozzle of the spray whilst pressing the button down Tallulah? Do you really want to go to casualty this morning Tallulah? We have had this discussion before Tallulah.’

We finally get out the door.  It is Thursday, Tallulah’s p.e. morning.  I discuss with her her need to get a move on this morning, not to sit on the wet floor in the corridor in her cream tights, and the fact that she has to get herself organised so I can help her with her p.e. things or I am leaving.  ‘Yes mummy! Yes!’ she says obediently.  Hmmmm.

We deposit Oscar in nursery.  He sulks.  At least he doesn’t cry like last week.  He wanted to take his measure tape.  I wouldn’t let him.  He hates me.

Tilly wanders about in the mud in her suede boots.  I shout at her.  She does this every day.  She hates me.  She peels off and heads for her classroom.

Tallulah stands in the corridor failing to take her boots off, staring into the middle distance.  I am chivvying her along.  She puts her hand on the zip of her boots and then freezes for no apparent reason.  I am scooping up p.e. kit when the head of year comes out to announce that p.e. will take place later in the day because there is a substitute teacher today and she can’t handle thirty naked five year olds at this time in the morning.  I thank God.  I turn to Tallulah.  She is still clasping her boots.

I force them off her feet.  She loses her plimsolls.  We find them eventually.  I have lost all patience.  All the parents hate me. Tallulah hates me.

I go home and throw myself into the cafetiere.

I have until three o’clock this afternoon and then we have to do it in reverse.  What joy.

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