My Poor Cream Carpet

Jo Adamson-Parker - 9 Nov 18

Some days Squeak, our angelic little four-year-old, the cheeky one who everyone falls in love with. The one who loves dancing to Kylie nearly as much as he loves farting (sorry!) The boy who we were told might never walk properly and now runs faster than me (hey, I can sprint when I want to!) Well, that one, some days he just looks at me as if to say,  ‘I am going to really mess with you’.

Take this morning. Our departure from the house to embark on the horror that is ‘The School Run’ has been designed like a military exercise. With Bubba’s need for structure and routine and my desire to keep some sanity it has to be like this. We’re never going to leave the house ‘peacefully’, we’ll never achieve that, our family just isn’t built that way, but for any chance of a ‘pleasant’ departure where no one wants to throttle anyone this is just how it has to be.

So this morning, we’re on target. Both boys are dressed, uniform isn’t on backwards so maybe we’re in for a ‘good day’.  Squeak has his shoes and coat on, Bubba is fighting to stuff his feet into his tightly velcroed up shoes (we’re buying him new ‘non-Velcro ones at the weekend!) and Squeak looks at me and smiles.

It’s his ‘special smile’. The smile that’s followed by the hunch of his shoulders, the arch of his back and a reddening of his face. Great, he’s doing a poo! We could be a while!

Now normally he’s either done one when he wakes up at 6am (really pleasant at that time) or he’ll do one at 10am which is really special on church play group day, he can empty a narthex in seconds! So why is this happening now? I’ve not factored this into my schedule and he waited until his shoes and coat were on to do it didn’t he. He’s done this on purpose. Yes he has.

Well, I’m not going upstairs to change him, that would add minutes onto departure time, so I plonk him down on the living room floor at which point his legs start kicking, his bum is bucking off the floor, so you just know he’s mixing it up in there. It’s gonna go everywhere isn’t it. And it wasn’t until I had his shoes and jeans off and nappy ripped open that I realised. No wipes.

‘Bubba can you get me some wipes please?’

‘Don’t want to’

‘Bubba. Please go into the kitchen and get some wipes’

‘Nah, not happening’                 His standard come back really winds me up

‘Bubba!’ Wipes’

‘No!’                                              This is said with indignancy like how dare I ask.

I’m sat on the floor, with Squeak between my legs holding his legs at the ankles with one hand, his bum is off the floor and his nappy is on full aroma attack. This is a desperate moment.  I’ve changed him wriggling and protesting before but at the moment he’s also shuffling about to grasp a car near his head and shouting ‘No Way!’ at me on my CREAM carpet.

‘Bubba, get me the wipes now or no youth club tonight’. I knew that threat would work.

Once I got the wipes, nappy was changed, Squeak re-dressed and Bubba proclaiming how ‘helpful he’d been’ off we skipped.

It’s almost like Squeak has these little moments where he likes to point out that he’s there and he can do what he wants. He’s very cheeky, he’s really funny but he also has a flash temper. I do try not to laugh at his flounces to the floor, his very high-pitched screams and his ‘look’ – this is where he makes a ‘humphing’ sound and crosses his arms tightly around his chest as if to say ‘I ain’t doing anything you want me to’. He’s also recently taken to saying, ‘knickers Mummy’ and laughing a me! Some days he just has, as my Gran would have said,  ‘divilment in his eyes’.

This morning I needed to go upstairs without him so, as he knows how to break through the baby gates, I barricaded him into the living room. He’d been really happy and focused on the floor playing with his cars since getting back from school run, so I thought he’d be ok whilst I took a workman upstairs. That sounds much dodgier than it was, sorry. Our CCTV was on the blink and needed fixing. It’s really useful for when someone comes to the door and we can’t be bothered to get up, or to see if it’s raining and for well, home security I guess!

I must have been upstairs for less then two minutes but obviously that was enough time.  Enough time for him to stand at my barricade and present me with an empty jar and a big ‘Aha!’

He was very pleased when I saw my cream carpet covered in large patches of what looked like coffee grounds but was actually the fish food he’d climbed up to get. He never touches that. I didn’t even know he was aware of it but now I had none left as it was all over the carpet. The cream carpet. He was disgusted that I hoovered it up and sat on the sofa shout ‘Why?’ at me.

I now have a slightly fishy smelling living room, but I suppose I can spy on people again. Shame we don’t still have the dogs old cage….. what?

Jo Adamson-Parker

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