Saturday 7 August 2010

The weekend is here

I woke up humming,an occasional and most welcome breeze whirling the curtains up into the air, suddenly saturating half the room with glorious sunshine.I stretch lazily.I love Saturday mornings before I go to work.It's the one morning of the week that hubby gets to eat breakfast with his clan.Hubby and I are like ships in the night.Mine equipped with one huge foghorn.Down the stairs I leap to find Bat Boy crying in the kitchen."Hungry.sweetie?"I coo,tussling his hair as he automatically moves to swipe my hand away. Hugging his head against my thigh,I half drag him over to the kitchen counter where the multi-tasking auto mummy pilot kicks into gear as I 'oh dear' and 'Don't worry,darling' my sweet one while putting on the kettle,frying pan on another ring,throwing bread at the toaster and reaching for the fridge door handle.I remember gushing to a friend when the twins were only four months old that I couldn't wait for them to start talking.Oh,the joy to hear their tiny tinkling voices.To sit and weigh the mighty conundrums of this and other worlds.My friend sat in silence only smiling and nodding at me,as is the case with mothers of older kids sat listening to a naive first mummy's delusional ramblings of   future family life.Six years on,the only way I can get a moments peace from the incessant synchronised banter of my three offspring,is to beat a hurried retreat to the toilet. The toilet....that last bastion of sanity where I sit,knickers round my ankles, a pious tribute to this hallowed room,head leant on the wooden door,bobbing up and down occasionally with the force of The Booby Slayer's fists pounding on the other side."How dare you take thirty seconds out to take a pee pee!A truly professional Mummy would have had a catheter attached after my birth."As all nature and wildlife adapts to new surroundings  so have I.Along this exhilarating path of parentdom,my mummy metamorphosis is not to be scoffed at.I can now boast an enviable myriad of talents from astounding multi-tasking skills to telepathy. Also most worthy of a mention and pertinent to today's musings is the 'gabble filter'.Listening to three kids,babbling away at the same time constantly throughout the day is a wee bit tedious on the few braincells that are hanging on in there.To overcome this rather formidable daily task,my mummy mind,over time,developed a kind of filter that enables mummy to 'listen' to the spoken word but home in on 'key words' and react appropriately.And so today's tale begins to unfold as the words 'crayfish' and 'gone' made their way through my ear canals setting off a series of reactions throughout my brain.I stopped beating the eggs and asked."What do you mean?" to my son,his head upturned,little crystals balanced on the corners of either eye."Charlie's escaped!"he shrieked,as the theme tune to 'Jaws' started up,I stared into an empty Charlie less tank and a camera in my mind did a Rod Steiger close up. How could this be?The crayfish was gone.With disbelief I grab a long chopstick and whirl it around the tank.No.Nothing.No.....the cat has been out all night and I don't think the goldfish have it in them to gang up and barbecue Charlie.I left the tank on the table because it's cooler there at night.Glancing at the wide expanse of lino on the kitchen floor,my back pressed against a cupboard.How far can a crayfish get?The crayfish.The scary thing that lives in the tank is now scary thing loose in the house.Notch up the scary meter.Bat Boy,joined later by Bat Girl and The Booby Slayer looked high and low for Charlie.Fatso the cat was getting rather heated up at not being immediately led inside to his normal table for breakfast that morning.Dirty feline looks rained in from outside the patio door.I was thinking about letting him in and asking him to be a tracker as I bent down and picked up one of Booby Slayer's boots.I felt something hard and clammy clamp down on my finger.Screaming and pulling my hand out,Charlie made his first greetings of the morn."Put him down gently,Mummy"advised Bat Boy.Resisting the urge to shake the mini monster off,I continued screaming instead as it made me feel better.The kids,thinking if you can't beat them join them,did just that......in between giggles,as I ran round the table feverishly trying to think of a way to get Charlie to let go of my fingers.One where we both come out alive anyway."What the hell is going on?"Hubby suddenly thundered into the room.I stood motionless,one hand in the air with a Charlie hanging off a finger."What are you doing with that crayfish,"he sighed deftly plucking the crustacean rather rudely off my digit causing me to cry out in pain."They're not like hamsters,you know,"he continues,"You just can't take them out and pet them."

I relish the commute to work and lose myself in the latest book.I arrive at work to see the office girl racing around manically and manage to convince her that it is okay for me to do my own photocopying.In the middle of this task,my Korean friend arrives and begins to chronicle with great relish,a rather amusing tale from the previous evening.As we burst into giggles,I suddenly feel something hit my foot.The pain is sudden and agonising.Looking down,my friend still giggling and unaware that anything has happened,to my horror I see a pair of scissors protruding in an upright position from my shoe.Bending down,one scissor blade has slipped between two toes and embedded itself in the sole of my sandal,the other was stuck in a toe.Starting to feel queasy,I grab a corner of a nearby table."Are you okay?"friend asks,gasping when she spies my foot and the scissors."Don't touch it,"she advises,"I used to be a nurse..."as I yank the blade out of my petrified toe who immediately begins to weep tears of blood....copious amounts of blood spilling out over the pale office carpet."Oh.."sighs my friend who then promptly faints and collapses over my back,hitting her head on a filing cabinet and falling to the floor.Another member of staff races over,dodging for a split second on who to assist first,The comatose one on the floor or the other one whose foot is gushing blood all over.The office girl,already at her wits end at half eight in the morning,yelps as she enters the room,surveys the scene and has to be helped into a nearby chair.

I  now have a delightful bandage on my finger and a huge one on my toe.......and it's only 9am..........

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL Love it!

Tokyo to Blackpool in one swoop. said...

Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Ok I got the post about the toe now!

Anonymous said...

An eventful day!