Who's Children Are These?

Lord 'elp us I bleached and scoured me bathroom tiles today. Must've been inspired by My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding's scrubbers! What are they like? They must reek of Cillit Bang them girls. I had to sit on the back doorstep for half an hour to calm the choking and stinging eyes. It's very unhealthy this housework business. And 'cos me shower curtain was in the wash (which was why I had the stoopid idea to attack the revealed tiles) I never quite got round to having a shower either. As soon as it was hooked back up - it was lunchtime, and another washing load on the conveyor, then I have to appreciate the new tenants of Ant-O-Sphere for longer than any over-9 mind can cope, put away all the Ben 10 figures while the freshly cleared space behind me quietly fills with dinosaurs, when Mr Roving Blade came home and got out his extended hose...... Then I have Carwash II going on outside which naturally leads to a queue for the shower. By which time I decide I may as well stay stinky and just jump under the jet before I go to bed - so I'm all clean and ready for the ice dash in the morning.

But somehow I never quite got round to that either. Mr R Blade had allowed a wiggly snotty small boy in with him tonight, leaving me back in with the wigglier and snottier smaller boy. But that's fine. He had a shower after all. And I even washed his barnet - having cut it tonight. The poor lamb probably needs a cuddle! He won't care if I pong. He's full of snot anyway. If I haven't got my man's mighty nostrils to worry about, I'll not bother. Especially as he's offered to do the dawn raid. Result! Staying stinkypants and getting a lie-in. However, Daddy's chosen companion is the only small person to have evaded the hygiene game - again. He must take after his mother. Poor Mr RB. The hapless fool. A nightful of the rather fruity kicky twitchy hair-tugging sheet kidnapper. We'll all be in for an earful tomorrow from the over-tired pater. But the bad side-effect of not being in with Mr RB is that I sneakily take the opportunity to switch on the 'puter and soak up the blogs instead.

Somebody really ought to send me to bed.

Bringing me to a new list of Rules of the House now sellotaped to the wall. I don't hold with Rules of the House. It's just an invitation to break them. Makes them seem so idiotic they HAVE to be broken. Becomes a point of honour to break them.

Orrrr - maybe that's just me.

But THEY wrote them!!! Those simian hooliganesque offspring wrote them.

I think it started off the other day when I yelled at Little Rock Godling 'When you're all grown up and you have your own house I'm gonna come round and throw tons of crap all over YOUR floor and see how YOU like it!'

Then yesterday he came up to me, all angelic, and said 'When I'm grown up and have my own nice house I'm going to have rules.' 'Oh yeah? Like what?' 'No mess. No punching. No looking over your shoulder when you're on the computer. When you're not well you get to have TWO of your own choice films in a row. And no being annoying.' 'Would I be allowed in your house?' 'Yes. Um.... actually this is my house isn't it 'cos I live here.' 'Yes darling' 'Mmmnnn....'

And so to today's list. He dictated and Minx wrote them out for him. I suspect she abused her position. We have:


List of Ruels

No food upstairs
Wash your hands after you've been to the toilet
And wash your hand (just one apparently - sorry - butting in as usual) before you eat
Tidy up your own mess
When you take your shoes off put them together on the shelf (my sarcastic contribution - never thinking that it would get heard let alone written down)
No swearing (that's me buggered then)
No vilonce!
Go to bed when your told
Eat ALL your dinner! No saying 'I'm hungry!' 28 seconds before you go to bed!
No lieing!
Only hour (maximum) on the computer A Day


I thought I was going to have to go to casualty to get stitched back up. Other suggestions that didn't make it to the list were 'If you get a game out you have to tidy it away before you get another one out'. (Unattractive spluttering from mother.) 'If someone says you're in the way of the telly you have to move.' (With you on that one.) And Dog Whisperer Boy added 'Don't put down praying before you eat. I know some families that do praying before they're allowed to eat anything and it's really annoying.' 'Who does that then?' (I really want to know - I hate being caught out by that shenanigans too.) 'Well only one family I know' - and he reveals the culprits. That's OK - I think I pissed them off ages ago anyway.

The line about going to bed was what really flipped my lid as it fell from the lips of Minx - the WORST to-bed-goer in history. After a couple of hours of flat refusal she then makes cleaning her teeth last another 45 minutes at least. Then she'll need another wee, have a nosebleed, realises she hasn't planned her outfit for the next day, or pretends she's been asleep and had a bad dream, or complains about the mouse noise, or the owls, or the bats, or the wind, or the rain, or says it's too hot/cold/dark/light/hard/soft...... or (most commonly) just comes back down moaning she's NOT TIRED and CAN'T GO TO SLEEP. Thank fuck she doesn't have homework to not do until bedtime. (Can't reveal what stubborn retrobate used to do that.)

She is the best contraception I've ever had.

If I were to write a list of things I wish we'd all do or not do it would be way cooler. No squirting bleach at things that don't look any the better for it. Yes sitting on the back doorstep pointing at ants. No cooking stuff that noone says Thank You for. Yes eating stuff straight out of packets. No looking closely at anything in this house. Yes hiding under duvets. No questioning your mother. Yes go and ask your father. That should have read: 'Um....go and ask your father' - no 'Yes' about it at all. Obviously if we moved house - to a clean one - we would suddenly have a whole ream of rules. No sellotaping lists of rules to the nice decorated walls would probably be the first.

So we shall see how long this nonsensical tablet of commandments of theirs stays up. I know who'll be the one to rip it down.....


No swearing?

And only one hour on the computer a day?



Bollocks to that.