Today's Sunday

06:13:2004
I pass this on with little comment; just the facts

I was woken by ---y asking me why I wasn't awake yet. They had already got up and gone downstairs where --z- had played with them.

----i and I got up. ----i had a shower while I went downstairs in my pyjamas to asses the situation. --m has started to select his own clothes to wear but isn't yet getting it quite right. He picked out two odd socks, three pairs of trousers and no top. This information was relayed to me by ---y who takes a delight in unconventional behaviour of others.

--z- told me that --m and ---y had already eaten but by the time ----i came down he was staking out my bowl of cereal and banana and demanding frequent samples. Either it was the museli, the soy milk or the banana but this was to have some serious reprecussions later in the day for him, gas-wise.

The kids played, and following the first crisis ----i packed them off to the living room for a ration of TV that was much needed by all of us. I loaded the car with 12 bags of garden waste, 2 buggered VHS machines, 3 buggered toasters, a buggered printer, and 3 dead AAA batteries. My destination: the recycle centre (open 7 days a week 8.00am to 3.45pm)

When the car was ready I sneaked ---y out of the living room and when she had finally found her shoes she followed me out to the car. I had promised her I would take her to the recycle centre and that she would be allowed in the front seat of the car (not sure about the legal implications of this, but she was strapped in pretty well and it wasn't far away). I hadn't been certain the day before whether it would be open, but the recycling centre (or 'dump' as ---e calls it) was in full swing, Sunday appearing to be the busiest day of the week. People were pitching up and dumping stuff into huge skips labelled 'green waste', 'household waste', 'metals only' and the like. ---y wanted to do as much of the dumping as she could manage, which meant she got to carry some of the toasters and videos to a big untidy pile of household items. I wondered what was going to happen to the pile, and my curiosity was rewarded with the sight of the recycle centre guys (one of whom looked like Tor Johnsson from the Ed Wood films) firing up a JCB and scooping up a whole pile of microwaves, VCRs, TVs, toasters, wicker baskets and a bakers trolley and dumping them in the skip with no little noise. I mentioned to ---y that --m would have loved the sight of that but she told me (quite rightly) that this was no place for --m. I was inclined to agree as at his present age --m would probably have ended up falling in one of the skips or running in front of one of the many cars that came and went.

On the way back ---y and I made a plan to take the car through a carwash as it hadn't been cleaned since the Clinton administration. The usual reason: general lassitude and a million other things taking priority. On the roster today was a visit to an 'Organic food fair' at a place called 'The Steiner House' which is apparently some sort of cult just off Regents park, then a supermarket visit for heavy stuff that needed the car, taking in lunch along the way, then home.

Firstly the car wash. There were three cars ahead of us, and by the time we got to the front there were five cars behind us. It was hot and I tried to find some 'Fruit Pastille' lollies in the petrol station freezer but there weren't any. I prepared ---y for the possible trauma of being inside a car beset on all sides by whirling green brushes, but she was quite excited about it. I remember automatic car washes being scary and thrilling at the same time, but below a certain age they were more scary than thrilling. As ----i tried to stem the water that was coming in through the front vent windows with a crisp wrapper, I sneaked a look back at --m and saw confusion cloud his little features as he followed the progress of the violently rotating brushes. ---y jiggled about in her seat and laughed manically.

Maybe as a result of the car wash experience, --m fell asleep before we got to the Steiner house. This suited me fine. I stayed in the car while he slept and read Simon Singh's book about Fermat while ----i and ---y met --z- inside where, I am told, they tasted some organic bread, were given piles of leaflets and ---y made a wet cotton wool ball in the children's play area. After 45 minutes --m started shifting around in his seat so I radioed ----i and the ladies returned, ---y proudly displaying a wet cotton wool ball in a nappy sack.

We went to the O2 centre on Finchley road. When we got there we witnessed a car park in full gridlock and a queue a mile long to get out. An argument had broken out as someone had tried to jump the queue and much honking filled the air. Luckily a space opened up just as we got through the barrier and we left them to it and went to a sushi place.

The Sushi place yielded mixed results; ---y was impressed by the conveyor belt delivery system but rejected everything until we found something on the menu that looked like a chicken Schnitzel. ----i ordered some maki which she thought would be fried bean curd but turned out to be omlette, and --m became obsessed with the water dispensers and recessed pickled ginger container at our table. ----i had to take him for a ride in the lift to calm him while ---y ate her chicken and I hoovered up everything else.

Then the supermarket. By now the kids were starting to get restless and pulled the usual routine of demanding to ride in the trolley and/or buggy, then demanding various items on the shelves, then demanding to get out of the trolley and/or buggy. Then just some generic demanding. I had planned a trip to the garden centre (located in the same complex) but ----i detected a breakdown in the kids so we postponed that. Luckily the car park situation was a lot calmer than when we had entered. We broke into the ice lollies we had bought in the supermarket and ----i and I had Fruit Pastille ones while ---y and --m had Fabs. We got through two each by the time we got home. There was little in the way of meaningful conversation in the car on the way back- mostly slurps.

One demand of the kids I had caved in to was for a paddling pool. The supermarket had one for £5 which seemed fair enough. When we got home I filled it with the hose (having to keep --m away as he gets inordinately excited by hoses and footpumps). Then to temper the cold water ----i dumped a few kettle-loads of boiling water in there, under ---y's direction. ---y changed into her swimsuit while --m preferred to run around naked. I tried to put pants on him but he got distressed after sitting down in the water and getting them wet.

We are currently trying to potty train --m. The method which we are using is the 'wait till summer, take his clothes off, put him outside and let nature take its course' one. This, coupled with having a potty handy, is supposed to induct the potty trainee into civilised toilet-going behaviour, but in --m it appears to be having the opposite effect. Roaming outdoors naked seems to bring out the wild animal in him, and he resolutely refuses to go near the potty. Our only hope was to predict the moment before excretion and get him to sit on the potty in time. In practice this meant following him around with the potty most of the late afternoon as the musili he had schnorred off me that morning was giving him large amounts of gas, each episode of which promised to herald some kind of solid result but time after time nothing came.

Until, that is, I gave up and went back to reading about Fermat. With impeccable comic timing, --m shat down his leg. I jumped across the patio and tried to sit him down on the potty, which he refused to do. As we struggled, me trying to fold him in half to force him into a sitting position, him locking his legs rigidly straight and screaming his heart out, I managed to step in the pile of poo that had accumulated on the floor. This excited the women greatly, and ----i ran to get the ubiquitous baby wipes while ---y danced around us jabbering and laughing despite my attempts to swat her away.

When all had been wiped up and hosed off, I saw --m looking ruefully at the potty as if internally vowing never to go near the thing again.

----i went to the toilet while I did some pasta and chicken frankfurters for the kids' dinner. When ----i got back she treated me to half an hour's peace while she gave them a bath. About half way through this, ---y came down saying I was needed as --m had done a second poo, this time on top of a packet of nappies. I'm not sure what the reasoning was behind this, but if anyone asks me if my son is out of nappies yet I can now safely say that he is still in nappies but his shit isn't.

It was my job to put the kids to bed while ----i went out to watch football (Euro 2004 England vs France 1st group game) at her friend ----s's place. When I tried to put him to bed --m went mental, clutching his foot and saying 'Ow'. I had a look at his foot. Apart from some peeling skin caused by a long-burst blister (and a tiny one at that) I saw absolutely nothing wrong with it. ----i claims that 'phantom foot pain' is normal when he is overtired, just as ---y complains of mysterious 'bum pains' when she is knackered. I rubbed a bit of cream on his foot and gave him a small dose of Calpol as a placebo, and ten minutes later he was conked out.

---y 'bounced back' after my first attempt to get her to sleep, and stood at the base of the ladder going to the attic, sobbing. So down I came (I was downloading an episode of 'Bilko' at the time) and put her in ----i's bed and talked to her until she calmed down and when to sleep. She's still there.

England lost, by the way.


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