I had two cups of tea yesterday. (What an opener.)
The first, at 5.45am, was more of a stiffener. Something to help me stay conscious. I had the second at 8.15pm which was, I’m fairly certain, the next time I sat down.
One of the big reasons for my sharp reduction in tea consumption is that Andy, easily the biggest tea drinker known to man, isn’t here. So not only am I doing the work of two people, I’m also not being offered a cup every half an hour.
Now if you’re one of those people who is minded to obey the letter of the law unequivocally I would urge you to move along. Close the browser. Go and twitch your curtains. Because Andy has broken lockdown law and has gone to spend a few days with his mum. Rat us out to Boris if you like but I challenge anyone to deny a grieving mother and son 48 hours together.
So I am flying solo. And, you know, it’s going well.
The kids watched six episodes of Paw Patrol before breakfast.
Bella ‘accidentally’ poured a full pint of milk on her cereal. Our last pint of milk.
Henry kicked his last remaining football over into the neighbour’s garden.
And Xander chose today to stop napping.
At 1pm I spent half an hour sitting at the top of the stairs with my laptop trying to think straight while going into his room every few minutes to stroke him and shush him and generally plead with him to go to sleep.
All the while he lay in his cot, puffy eyed with exhaustion, steadfastly refusing to succumb until I caved and got him up. I then conducted a work video call on my phone while pushing him furiously in the buggy in the hope that would send him to sleep. It did not.
That was my first work call of the day.
The big kids were quiet because I’d let them help themselves to ice creams and put on a movie. (They can do both these things for themselves. Ask them to clear the table, put on their shoes, brush their hair, not knock each unconscious with an errant nerf gun, and you may as well have asked them to parallel park an articulated lorry for the blank look you get.)
For the second call - again a video call - I asked Henry to watch Xander in the playroom.
Not three minutes into the call Henry walked past my desk on the way upstairs. Perhaps he was going to get a toy. Or find a book to read to his brother.
Then I heard a door close, which I decided was ominous.
He didn’t reappear.
I eventually took my computer through to the kitchen so I could keep an eye on Xander myself. (Bella was in the playroom too but he could be climbing up the curtains and chewing on a live electrical wire and she wouldn’t notice.)
His exhaustion-induced whinging escalated gradually until it was full blown crying. I glanced through and he had got himself wedged under the kids’ table, tangled in some sort of purple feather boa (origins unknown) while Bella stood over him sucking her thumb and attempting to soothe him by stroking his head with her foot.
Once more my computer came with me as I went through to disentangle him - my colleagues getting an eyeful of the utter horror that is the playroom - and as I walked back to the kitchen, Xander on my hip, laptop in my hand, still holding a conversation and all the while on video, Henry strolled into the room wheeling a full sized suitcase behind him.
No idea why. It remains in the playroom, naturally.
At 3pm I marched the kids out for a walk in a bid to get Xander to sleep in the sling. I hadn’t eaten all day so threw together a marmite and lettuce sandwich which I ate in the car (we drive to our walk on account of the shortness of both Bella’s legs and patience). I didn’t need hunger contributing to my already cliff edge temper.
Five minutes into the walk we encountered a family we know from school and swapped sympathetic tales of general lockdown hell. It was only after we had parted that I realised I had marmite on my hand which, I fear, could have been very easily mistaken for something else. I couldn’t muster up the energy to care.
Half way round the walk, out of nowhere, Bella suddenly decided she wanted to go home, so she started walking back the way we had come. She was insistent she knew the way and would just wait at the car. I had Xander asleep on me so couldn’t shout after her. Which meant I had to use every ounce of my negotiating skills (which are non existent at the best of times) to get her to come back and walk with us. She was, of course, having the tantrum outside the house of a friend who just so happened to be in her front garden. You couldn’t make it up.
It turned out her chief issue was that she wanted to “walk by my own”. I couldn’t quite get across to her that it wasn’t safe for four year olds to ramble across fields alone, not because of weirdos lurking behind hedges ready to abduct her, but because what if she fell over and I wasn’t there to pick her up? (The child can fall over air. It’s truly astonishing.)
This seemed to hit the mark so we resumed our walk, wending our way down footpaths, through gates and into fields. For a time we walked in amiable silence which, given Henry hasn’t stopped speaking for about three years, tells you all you need to know about our collective energy levels.
Anyway, we eventually got to the field which would take us home, and Bella said she was going to run ahead. She was clearly desperate for this little bit of independence so I said as long as she waited on the brow of the hill where I could see her, it was ok.
She didn’t wait.
She stopped, turned to look at me, turned back and continued running.
Then fell over.
It took a long couple of minutes for me to get to her (uphill, 25C, Xander strapped to me) during which time she lay on her front, dress up round her waist (she will not wear trousers), arse out to the world, wailing her head off about what turned out to be some dust and the faintest of scratches. Lesson learnt? Not a chance.
When we got home I went to get something out of the fridge and found the ice cream scavenging earlier on had resulted in the freezer door being left wide open all afternoon. On a hot day. There’s an irony to the fact that the only thing that couldn’t be refrozen was the remaining ice creams.
And the day didn’t much pick up after that.
Through gasping sobs Bella informed Andy on the phone that I was a liar because I wouldn’t let her play on her tablet when it was time for bed.
And when I thought everyone was asleep Henry appeared to announce his tooth had fallen out.
I’m writing this at 9pm so now, rather than beginning to tackle the unread emails in my inbox before the long weekend, I must set about getting my hands on a pound coin. I haven’t seen cold hard cash for a couple of months now and it is all but guaranteed that we don’t have any in the house.
Let's hope he’ll settle for a euro...
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