A day off

1st Tea break: I thought I’d try for a day doing nothing today. Then I remembered the ironing needs doing, the girls hair needs doing, the kitchen stinks (again, thanks Kobi!) and needs scrubbing, two loads of washing should get done, and I’ve got accounts to do for one of my jobs – and after that lot, and the dog walks, I seriously doubt there’ll be much time left for doing nothing.

Still, I get my tea breaks (which is when I’m jotting here) though I’m supposed to be cutting down on the caffeine (doctor’s orders) so I’m trying to drink more water, which is so boring.

2nd Tea break (ugh, I mean water break): Hohoho, having just finished getting the kitchen floor ready for washing (cleaning the bird out, taking the chairs out, and sweeping up) I have just remembered the dog ate the mop. Great. Now I have to do it on my hands and knees. 40 square meters with the utility. On the upside, I’ve already screamed at the children’s comings and goings so much (when I was sweeping) they’re now all hiding outside with the dog, so even if my knees give out, at least I’ll get some peace and quiet!

And talking about peace and quiet, I got a lie-in this morning and managed to stay in bed until 6:45. Turned out to be a bit of a mistake as it meant that the kids were already up, and thus three of them asked to accompany me on the dog’s morning walk. Now a nice sane mom might be thrilled at the prospect of her children wishing to join her – and I was, for all of two minutes. Then we got to the end of the drive.


3rd water break (kitchen nearly done!), but who am I kidding? These are cigarette breaks with a drink thrown in: So by the time we set out, the kids had already started arguing about who should get to walk the dog. Never mind that I hadn’t agreed any of them could walk him (it might be a Sunday on a 15mph road, but there aren’t any pavements), and of course with both the girls in tow the volume soon reached fever pitch. And even after I’d said no-one could have a go until Kobi had run through the woods and worn himself out a tad, they found plenty of other stuff to squeal about. And when they weren’t shouting at the ducks and debating which way to go, P was playing the Mad Scientist (it’s what he now wants to be when he grows up) and scaring them silly with his practiced insane laugh.

All this time I’m trying to remind Kobi to heal and hissing at the kids to be quiet as the people in the neighbouring houses might surely like to sleep later than 8am on a Sunday morning!

4th Tea break and now the proud owner of a clean kitchen floor and wrinkly hands (and yes it is tea, I deserve it!): I was complaining about the dog walk, but my mind’s moved on from that now, and anyway there were some sweet moments – would you believe S can’t count to 10 but can remember all I told her about ferns? She was able to tell J all about how old they were, and how the dinosaurs ate them, but how the dinosaurs had mostly died out and the others evolved into birds, but not the ferns. J wasn’t really interested, but I was touched our lunchtime walks had obviously interested S.
Oh and you may notice from the picture, the only one who ever bothered to see if mom was flowing behind was Kobi. Bless his heart, I’m really starting to love this dog! He seems to have mostly got the hang of where to poop and I have a theory he pees in the kitchen whenever he’s fed up with me (which is whenever I’ve shouted at him for chewing something he shouldn’t have, like the kitchen units), but the rest of his training is coming along great, and he behaved very well when both P and J took turns walking him home.


And something else tickled me this morning. Looks like I’m a fielder in a virtual cricket team! The team hasn’t got a name yet, but if you hurry over to Dave’s and volunteer to play, you get a chance to show off your wit and thus earn yourself the possibility of becoming club president. It should be fun with Dave’s imagination in charge, and as it’s virtual I’m hoping we’ll soon be wiping the floor with the likes of Freddie Flintoff (though I can think of better things to do with Freddie ;o))