The Rules

Oscar is asserting himself.  Psychologically, in terms of growing up, this is a very good thing.  For harrassed mothers with better things to do with their day than spend their time saying sternly:

• Put that down!
• Do not throw that!
• Hitting is wrong and dangerous.
• Throwing things at people’s heads is totally unacceptable

and my favourite of the day:

• It is not nice to piddle over the pedal car.  And no. You cannot drive it until I have found the hose pipe.

and other such pearls of wisdom, it is highly tedious and all a bit rubbish.  Not helped by the fact that I have done it twice before but it does not get any more easy or any less boring.  Having said that, neither of the girls piddled on the pedal car, to be fair.

The naughty step is working, sort of.  He actually stays on it now, after the first time where I spent more time than I wanted to (i.e. none) chasing him up and down stairs.  He is however, deeply unimpressed.  He sits on it and lounges backwards with his hands tucked behind his head, wagging his foot up and down and rolling his eyes in the manner of a precocious sixteen year old.  I shall be expecting him to flip me the bird and say, ‘Yeah! Like! Whatevah!’ next.  It is so depressing.

Today I had to take him to Accident and Emergency.  Not because I had beaten him to death with the hosepipe after the pedal car incident.  No.  This was down to the limp.  You know, the limp from the party last weekend where he got trampled? It has not gotten better.  It has gotten slightly worse.  I have been ignoring it in the time honoured tradition of mothers everywhere who are utterly sick and tired of ringing NHS Direct and screaming across the country covered in Calpol at three in the morning only to be told that something is ‘viral’.  I put some ‘magic’ cream on it (calendula.  I have moved on from Germolene. It’s the smell) and gave it a magic kiss and have been studiously ignoring it ever since.  He too is ignoring it, but he was limping markedly today and I began to have those horrible niggling thoughts.  You know the ones:

• ‘What if he’s got a compound fracture and I’ve ruined his chances of becoming a professional footballer/ballet dancer/fell walker forever?’
• ‘What if Social Services find out I’ve been ignoring it for over a week and take him away to live in a coal scuttle with Fagin and his gang and years later when he beats someone to death with a stick of celery, they blame me?’
• ‘What if they all look at me and go ‘tsk’ and raise their eyebrows in that way? The shame!’

etc.

In the end, because the girls’ dad had taken them away and I only had one, limping child, I ended up in childrens’ A&E this afternoon.  I was going to take him to the doctors, but their next emergency appointment is Friday, they are mown out with swine flu and they are sick to the back teeth of ill people. They told me to take him to A&E, which I duly did.  It was very quiet.  We were in and out in fifteen minutes.

The doctor was very impressed with his pink toe nail polish and very unimpressed with the fact that I was wasting her time over a nasty sprain.  Fin.

Good.

Then Oscar tried to run away as I was navigating my way outside towards the car and home.  Luckily he couldn’t go too fast because of the limp, but was very wily as I went one way and he went the other.  He was apparently making a break for an ambulance because he had to go in one because of his poorly foot.  He nearly had to go in one because of a lot more than that.

Later, because I would not let him run with a dripping bottle of bubble mixture and skid on it, he threw the bottle at me and then ran away.

I have been very patient, but it will not last long.  I do not like sprinting at the best of times, my Rigby and Peller needs renewing thanks to being over worked at the coal face of bosom management and I am very tired after trying to finish reading the Highway Code.  Now is not the time to mess with me.  Although I am much safer in the vital knowledge that ‘children like ice cream more than they like traffic.’  Aren’t you glad we have rules? Who would ever have guessed.

I have threatened small limping boys with the hated reins if we have any more running away nonsense.  The only running away I will tolerate in my house is me, making a break for the hills with a suitcase full of books and the cafetiere.