Last night my friend asked if I
could take care of her daughter today while she and her husband attended a
medical appointment. I agreed quickly – their girl is always a pleasure to take
care of, she’s Picklepot’s “girlfriend” so they get on like a house on fire,
and she’s also great with Sunshineface. I had no plans other than to work, so I
thought great, the kids can play and I can get on.
She arrived this morning just
after 8.30 so I was still wearing bed hair, PJs and seeking out my first coffee
of the day. After a night of getting up with Sunshineface (who was most adamant
he did not want to sleep!) I was in serious need of caffeine. Fortunately my
friend and her daughter are perfectly used to seeing me in this condition and
it’s no bother for them. Picklepot was already up and dressed, patiently
waiting for his girlfriend to arrive for their playdate.
I did some work and got everything
up to date, I did an online shop for delivery tomorrow since we just got paid
and have NO FOOD in the house, and I drank my second coffee before 10am. Things
were going well. Then the husband woke up and sorted himself out, came
downstairs with Sunshineface. Breakfast was being consumed by the two bigger
ones, and the Sunshineface was provided with a chopped apple (which he mostly
chewed and then left the chewed up chunks in various places around the front
room, but no matter, he’s much like me and rarely eats properly first thing in
the morning)
I got myself dressed and came
downstairs, husband left for work, I did some more work and got everything up
to date again, got Sunshineface dressed and we left the house to walk to the
little shop down the road. While the big shop is arriving tomorrow, I needed a
couple of essentials today. We also needed to put some electric on our key
meter, so our main purpose was to stop at the shop to sort that out, but in
addition as it was a sunny day and work was all up to date I thought I’d take
the kids to the little park near the shop to let off some steam too.
We walked to the shop, I checked
my account before taking out some cash (nightmare fear of the money not going
into the account for some reason on payday!) and I went to get the electric key
out of the pocket on the pushchair to top it up in the shop. I hadn’t brought
the key with us. I’d taken it out of the meter and placed it on the radiator in
the hallway ready to put in the pocket on the pushchair and take with us, then
in all the palaver involved with getting three children out of the door and one
into the pushchair I’d forgotten to pick it up.
We walked back home, I dived
indoors and grabbed the key, we walked back to the shop again. We were in no
hurry, the kids were behaving themselves and it was nice weather. I kept
telling myself it really didn’t matter, even though Picklepot kept complaining
that now he was seven I should have left him in the park with his girlfriend on
their own while I went home to get the electric key (Nice try, kid, but NO!)
At the shop, the bigger two
decided they didn’t want to come in so I headed in with Sunshineface in the
pushchair and picked up what we needed. Sunshineface decided now was a good
time to drop his feet onto the front wheels of the pushchair – you know, while
I’m juggling bread, milk, cheese and butter in one hand and steering one handed
around a tiny shop with barely enough room to get down each section. Cheers,
kiddo. I made it to the front desk (feeling proud of myself) and put down my
shopping, asked the lady for some money to be put on the electric key, and just
as I was asking for two mixed slushies for the big ones they came screaming
into the shop because Picklepot was being silly and doing something he shouldn’t
have been so his girlfriend came to tell me what he was doing and he came to
defend himself. I said OK whatever, I’m getting slushies if you behave
yourselves so they both did a happy dance and squealed a lot and shouted
requests at the lady behind the counter about what they wanted.
Once we finally staggered out of
the shop we went to the park. To my dismay it has quickly become an open
rubbish bin … litter just about everywhere, broken bottles and cigarette ends,
empty squashed cans, crisp packets blowing in the breeze and all that kind of
sad crap you find blights so many places which should be really nice for the
community to enjoy. I decided to overlook this, the kids were thrilled to be at
the park, they ran off ahead to play.
Picklepot found a kid he knew
playing with another kid – no parent in sight – just two six year olds on their
own in a park in the middle of a housing estate. They were doing their best to
break something – I don’t even know what it was – and immediately started
asking Picklepot to share his slushie. Annoyed, I called him over to me, told
him to leave his slushie with me while he played, asked him to play nicely and
not destroy whatever it was the other boys were destroying. He returned to them
and immediately started to try and destroy the object. They’d progressed by
then from stamping on it and throwing it to climbing up a frame with it and
chucking it off the top. I was a bit concerned about someone getting hurt, as
well as annoyed that he was so quickly ignoring my wishes and joining in. So I
shouted over to him, you play nicely you don’t try and break stuff or you come
in here with me. He shouted back, But they’re trying to break it! So I thought
to hell with it and yelled back, I don’t care what they’re doing, they’re not
my children, but you know better than to try and destroy things especially if
it isn’t your property! Pretty quick all of them stopped doing what they’d been
doing and started playing. I thought OK and left them to it.
Picklepot’s girlfriend was in the
fenced off area with Sunshineface and myself, and while she was playing happily
with Sunshineface I did think it was a bit rude that Picklepot had just left
her to it while he went off with someone else. Then he shouted help. I looked
round and he’d climbed up the top of a frame which has various ways of getting
down again – a firemans pole, a twisted rope ladder, and a set of those double
bars you slide down. He’s climbed up it a thousand times before, and come down
those double bars with no problem. He’s come down them head first, feet first,
dangling with just his arms, backwards, you name it. This time he’d climbed up
and decided he was unable to get down.
His girlfriend went over there to
help him and I heard the other boys start taking the mick about “A girl” coming
to his rescue, which got my back up. That girl has bigger balls than most boys
I know. She’s utterly brilliant with Picklepot, she keeps him calm and stops
him getting too worked up, and I knew for a fact she’d be able to talk him down
no problem. She also has no fear herself and is quite happy to climb up the
frame and come down the firemans pole without even blinking. So she did that a
couple of times, and I was so proud of the way she simply ignored the other two
as if they weren’t even there, and eventually Picklepot had the confidence to
come down the double poles again.
After a while at the park we came
home. Sunshineface was hungry and the other two kids were bugging me, three
other girls had turned up (alone) and I’d had enough and wanted more coffee. We
walked home without too much issue, though Picklepot was being a bit silly and
mucking about it wasn’t too bad.
Once home, we had some lunch and
my friend arrived. She stayed for a while so the kids carried on playing. I did
some more work, got up to date again, things seemed to be going well.
Then Picklepot came in from the
garden to announce that because his girlfriend was being bossy, he’d thrown his
trainer at her and now it was in a bush and he couldn’t get at it. He wanted me
to get it for him. He expected me, in a summer dress, to climb through a 6ft
tall rose bush and pull a trainer out of a prickly bush. Um, no, you can ask
your dad to fetch it later and then you can explain to him why you threw your
trainer in a bush in the first place. My friend and her daughter went home. A
busy day but bar the odd issue, fairly successful.
As mentioned earlier, our choices
for dinner were limited so I put into the oven what we had left to make a meal.
It was about halfway cooked when an urgent scream from Picklepot in the front
room alerted me to the fact that Sunshineface had somehow got hold of the
Sharpie marker pens I use for my grown-up colouring books.
I went into the front room and
found Sunshineface sitting in an armchair with an assortment of 20 Sharpie pens
around him, on the floor in front of him, handfuls of them. Lids were off, he
had purple on his t shirt, red on his knee, green on his foot and an assortment
of colours on his hands. Once I gathered them together, put the lids back on, I
went to take him upstairs. I realised I couldn’t walk across the front room due
to the amount of toys between me and the doorway.
As I started to tidy up I asked
Picklepot for help, to which his response was, “I didn’t make the mess” I said
OK you didn’t tip the toys over the floor but you played with them, so help me
tidy up please. “I didn’t make the mess I only played with the toys” So I said
well I didn’t even get to play with the toys but I’m expected to tidy it all
up! He still wouldn’t help me tidy so I did that myself. Then I took
Sunshineface upstairs to try and sort him out. Turns out that Sharpie pen won’t
come off skin with baby wipes, nor with a hand soap and warm water scrub, so
leaving him covered in Sharpie quickly became my only option and I was about to
go to the loo before we went back downstairs when I realised the loo was
blocked with loads of paper.
After unclogging the toilet, and
going to the loo, and scrubbing my hands thoroughly, I took Sunshineface back
downstairs so I could serve up dinner. Of course, it had been halfway cooked
when I was called away for the Sharpie incident, and this whole time of
clearing up and sorting out toys and the blocked toilet and trying to clean up
Sunshineface meant that dinner was a crusty relic of what it could have been.
We ate what we could of dinner,
then the kids had ice cream for afters, and of course Sunshineface covered
himself in melted ice cream. Along with the Sharpie on his clothes, I decided
to strip him off and put his clothes straight in the wash.
The washing is on (with plenty of
Vanish!) and work is up to date (again). Husband has just arrived home and
Sunshineface is running around in his nappy and nothing else (he won’t keep his
dressing gown on) the purple Sharpie went through his t shirt so he has purple
splodges on his tummy and a red line down one side, to compliment the red spots
on his knee, the green squiggle on his foot and the multi colour design on his
hand.
Now husband is home, the joy of
the bedtime routine can begin. I just hope Sunshineface is more tired than he
was last night and we don’t end up sitting there til 10.30pm with him throwing
George Pig soft toys at my head telling me “No sleep”.
I’m exhausted, and I’m looking
forward to my Archers & lemonade tonight!
