Day Two:

Jo Adamson-Parker - 30 Oct 18

Day Two: Slightly less relaxing than yesterday but then I did take Bubba to see a film and fell asleep five minutes in. Haven’t a clue what happened, great nap, Bubba was none the wiser, so everyone was a winner! This morning was slightly different to say the least!

This half term I’ve tried to split my time with the boys so that they’re in Holiday Club or Nursery on different days and I get one on one time which each of them. Bubba loves going his After-School Club which is where Holiday Club is and usually kicks off when we collect him on an evening because he HAS to be the last one to leave. So same venue, same people, same activities. You’d think simple, wouldn’t you? No. He wants to go, he asks to go and yet he still gets really anxious beforehand.

This morning the whooping started at 6.30am – just as I’d got downstairs and turned the kettle on. Every morning I attempt ‘Stealth Ninja moves’ to get downstairs, avoid the creaky top step and turn the alarm off before waking Bubba. Usually a second after I’ve pressed in the code I hear the thud of his feet hitting bedroom floor and then what sounds like a baby elephant thudding down the stairs.

Today the whooping was accompanied by a sound very similar to a screeching monkey and it was loud. Very loud. Squeak had been fast asleep but once the zoo noises started I saw my gentle wake up running for the hills and not taking me with it! I had an unregulated Bubba screeching and whooping and Squeak yelling ‘Morming Mumee’.  I’m awake!

Getting ready to leave I was told several times, ‘There’s nothing in my bag, don’t look in my bag as there’s nothing in my bag’. What? Well, of course I’m gonna look in his bag now! Up to that point I hadn’t thought of doing the usual ‘pre-school pat down’.  Stash of LEGO found and confiscated I then got the quite creative ‘you’re being horrible to me, you’re always not nice to me, well if you’re not going to be nice then I won’t be nice, frankly I think you should treat me with more happiness’ (I liked that end bit.)

So Bubba had been searched and sorted, Squeak has had his coat put back on twice after stripping himself (helpful), lights are off, all bags packed, we’re ready. Then the smell hit me. I looked at Bubba, because he is known for doing the worst ‘emissions’. He looked very indignant! ‘It wasn’t me!’ Squeak had filled his nappy, just as we’re ready to leave. Great.

Bags down, back in the house. The living room floor will have to do. Strip him, change him, all the time he’s shouting, ‘No Way!’ and trying to wriggle from me. I’m wrangling Squeak whilst trying to keep an eye on Bubba to make sure he’s not taken the opportunity to stuff his pockets with toy-tat.

Lets start again! You think…. Halfway to the bus stop, as I still can’t walk far due to damaged, painful back, Bubba decides his trainers hurt and he sits down. C’mon! Really? Am I going to get anywhere today?

I try telling him, as I do every morning, that he needs to put them on properly and not just stuff his toes in and wriggle his foot until it’s kind of in. Nope, not happening. He’s making a feeble attempt to loosen his trainer and then yelling ‘Look, look it hurts. These don’t fit, they’re the wrong size.’ Suddenly the trainers he was wearing all weekend have dropped a size! His feet haven’t grown, he’s just being a dick. He’s being a dick because he’s anxious to go somewhere he likes going, and where I pay a lot of money for him to go.

I march back to the house, Squeak trailing behind me now shouting ‘Buss, Buss!’ He’s the relatively sane one of us, he must wonder what we’re doing most mornings.

Right. Nappy clean, clothes on, Lego and tat gone, trainers changed. Can we please get off our road now?

Once we’re at the bus top.. sorry this might seem long winded, but I wanted to give you an insight into my morning. Today it was one twitish thing after another! At the bus stop, Bubba’s unregulated, running around the bus shelter and whooping. Squeaks jumping in a puddle and waters going everywhere. Then Bubba stops, which is a good thing as I was seriously going dizzy.

‘I really wanted to play with LEGO’  (This is said with really good dramatic miserableness).

‘Well ask the ladies at holiday club then’ (I thought this a pretty reasonable thing to do).

‘No I can’t, cos we get to play what we want’

‘Well ask to play with LEGO then’. (Haha I think, problem solved. Easy)

‘No, we get to play what we want and I mostly want to play football’ (Argh)

‘Well Bubba, that’s your choice’ (I’m really trying to be therapeutic, but I want to hit my head on the bus shelter).

‘But I want to play with LEGO’ (The whine is coming..)

‘That’s your choice then, you can’t play both’ (oh how wrong can I be?)

‘Actually you can, I can have some LEGO and play with it whilst I’m playing football’

Now I didn’t say it but in my head I replied ‘well you just do that then’

As usual he strutted in to Holiday Club without a backwards glance. In my Grans day she’d have said ‘I didn’t get a kiss, a cuddle a kiss me arse or nothing’! I try not to say arse to the boys tho but it is in my head.

I thought once I had just the one Little Prince the day would start to look up, yet again how wrong can I be? I took Squeak into the city centre on a bus, as he loves buses and I’m being nice to him. I’m being a lovely Mummy and giving out the happiness!

First shop we go in, just as I’m looking at something, he grins at me and does the mother of all poos whilst rearranging a diary shelf.

They’re plotting together aren’t they? I’m onto them for tomorrow – my only day with both of them together! Can’t wait!!

Jo Adamson-Parker

View profile for posts, events and more info