It's the Easter holidays and I've taken a few days off work. Last week, while trying to clear the Brazilian rain forest off my desk I was really looking forward to a few, stress free days at home with the little darlings. It's day two, and I've already exhausted a month's supply of Valium. I've been logging onto my office computer and checking emails in the hope that I will stumble upon an excuse to drag me (fake kicking and screaming) back to the office. Sadly there's no crisis, no job someone else there can't handle, and so I'm here, desperately trying to think of low risk activities. Right now the Little Darlings are watching some vomit inducing American tv programme, but I estimate I have approximately twenty-two minutes before they need entertaining.
The tv as a source of entertainment is much underrated in my view. It's generally safe, and can even be educational, although of late all the little darlings have learned about is the pinky pledge. Regrettably Boychild does insist on watching it, from time to time, while balancing on his head, but it's still less hazardous, on the whole, than outdoor pursuits. When he was a toddler Jack formed the habit of climbing on top of the tv and lying with his head hanging over the front of the screen. I would periodically remove him. I've read chapter and verse about the oppositional child, and followed the professionals' advice to choose my battles wisely, which is why I tried to ignore his climbing habits. This parenting style came back to bite me when the tv broke down, and the repairman came to take the tv away. The box had suffered such abuse at the hands of the Little Darlings, we abandoned his list of pre-existing injuries the set had endured, and I agreed to sign to say that it was "totally screwed". In any event the reason that the tv had ceased normal operations was that it was full, apparently, of toddler urine.
I'm not sure if it's a mother thing, but Boychild has me in a constant state of anxiety. While I was cleaning up after breakfast, Kate came in and as she poured herself a drink, nonchalantly informed me that Boychild was stuck on the trapeze. She said it so casually that it took a few moments to register. We don't have a trapeze, or so I thought. I then ran out back, and Jack had managed to rig up a kind of Heath Robinson death slide, and was stuck on top of it. I spoke softly to him as I approached, as though I've been trained to talk suicidal would-be jumpers away from the precarious edges of a tower blocks, with visions of yet another trip to accident and emergency looming large on my consciousness. I untangled him without incident, and begged him to watch tv.
The incident brought back memories of the forays we've had, over the years, to the local hospital, the most memorable of course being when Jack broke his leg. I remember the triage nurse carefully holding Boychild's head in his hands so he couldn't look at me, and asking him how it happened. I accept the nurse needs to check for signs of child abuse, but it did made me wonder if there is a secret record alerting staff when a certain number of visits have been racked up. Setting aside the illness as opposed to injury visits the Little Darlings have accumulated the following attendance record:
- When Kate was two she ate an Ariel liquitab (the sort that should go in a washing machine)
- Shortly followed by Eve diving head first out of a Tesco's trolley - that's when I assumed the Bad Mother title
- Next Eve sprayed perfume in Jack's eyes (or so I thought until, on the way to the hospital for the next trip, he confessed that he'd done it to himself)
- Most recently Eve dropped a marble chopping board on her foot.
I guess five trips in eight years isn't so bad. However, I now need to find some non-A & E inducing activities for the Little Darlings that doesn't involve Hanna Montanna et al.
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