NotSheep

Jack has continued to fry my brain today. By the time we got home yesterday evening, I was unable to communicate with more than a grunt. Every time someone spoke to me, it took me about a minute to register that they were speaking to me, after which I’d stare at them for a while trying to comprehend what they were saying. It took until early afternoon today for the effect to wear off.

Jack informs me that when he grows up, he will have “um… sometimes men have hair on their face, a moustache here” - indicating the bit of face between his upper lip and his nose (does that bit actually have a name?) - “and here” - indicating his chin - “what is that called? Yes, a beard. I will have a beard below my mouth and a moustache below my nose. And I will have a mokorbike. It will be a green mokorbike. And orange.” Brief pause. “And pink. It will be a cool mokorbike. I like mokorbikes!”

Yes, Well, I’m sure that will be a memorable picture.

Anyway.

Now that I’ve regained the power of speech (if not, perhaps, the power of rational thought), I’ll blog today’s events. The morning was fairly hopeless, with a lot of bickering and “You are banned from my room forever!” and “I am going to sit here and never talk again for the rest of my life!” going on (and that was just me ;-)) so I decided that we needed to get out of the house. Partly because of the bickering, and partly because I really need to lose some weight - someone who saw my photo said I looked more “cuddly” than she’d imagined; I’m not quite sure what to make of that, but I don’t think it could be interpreted as “thin and gorgeous”. More exercise means I can eat more food, and eating more food is a good thing.  So out we went.

I put Toby in the stroller and told the others to keep up or be left behind, and started to walk. I even ran for a little bit (okay, okay, a very little bit). I was sweating and wheezing my way up a hill when a woman in an approaching car started waving frantically. At first I wondered if I looked like I was about to die (I felt like it), and then I wondered if she was just a madwoman, and then I realised she was one of the midwives I had last year - not one of those who attended Toby’s birth, but my named midwife nonetheless. We had a chat for a while; she said she’d drop in sometime to see us, and then I went off to heave myself and the stroller up the rest of the hill.

Arriving home, I noticed the grass in front of the house looked a bit neglected (I don’t usually see it, as there are bushes between the driveway and the grass at the front, and usually when I go out on foot I go in the other direction), so, feeling all energised and virtuous, I pulled out the lawnmower and cut the grass. Not that Scratchy appreciated it; as soon as he got home he said “Did you use the grass-box?” Well, no. Because I do it my way and he does it his way. Except next time he can flamin’ well do it his way, because I’ll be sitting on the patio with a large glass of something instead of bothering.

Where were we? Oh yes, cutting the grass. George and Freddy and Jack disappeared across the street while I did that, and Barney sat on the front doorstep and entertained Toby, then made lunch while I had a much-needed shower. The others arrived back for food, then took off again. Barney was about to leave for the leisure centre when there was a furious pounding on the front door, followed by Freddy yelling at me “George is stuck! He’s really stuck! He’s stuck in N’s bike!” Eh?

N lives down the street and he has one of those bikes with bits sticking out of the centre of the wheel so someone can stand on them and get a ride. A wonderful idea - if you don’t stick your foot down and forwards just as the pedal comes down. If you do that, you end up with your foot firmly wedged between the frame of the bike and the pedal and you screaming, “My foot’s stuck! I’m dying! I’m going to die!” - well, you do if you’re George (never knowingly under-dramatic, that’s my George). It only took a couple of minutes to figure out how to get his foot out, and to do it (and it would have been quicker if he hadn’t been freaking out every time I tried to touch him), but by that time half the street was out to see what was going on. Apparently they’d been on the road when it happened, and Freddy was the one who suggested moving the whole lot - George and bicycle - onto the pavement; at least one of them has a bit of sense.

With the battered child rescued (and actually he displays no signs of so much as a bruise now), Barney took off and the rest came indoors for a while. I sat down to feed Toby and woke up an hour later with a stiff neck.

R (the boys’ friend from across the road) came in for a while later in the afternoon, and I lost my mind and tried to make phone-calls with him and Freddy in the room - the two loudest children I’ve ever met. (Barney says he met a louder one at his camp last weekend, but I’m sceptical.) Dinner, filling in forms for En Famille, and bed.

That was my day. How was yours?