It's Easter holiday time.
Which means everyone is off and at home having a great fun time.
Sun's nearly out in the UK. The tundras (we had a bit of snow) have moved on, the outside is once again calling.
Time to wind down, relax and just be free. Lovely!
Except me. Obvs. I still have to go to work.
I don't get Easter holidays...
(BabyBoy3: ‘Daddy I found these…’
Nice mate!
BabyBoy3: ‘What I do with them now?’
Give them to me
AH HAHHAAHHHHAHHAAAAAA
You share them eat them…)
BabyBoy3: 'What me doin' today?'
You're at home with Mummy!
BabyBoy3: 'Mummy not going to work?'
Nope...
BabyBoy3: 'Miss7 go to school?'
Nope...
BabyBoy3: 'Boy10 go to school?'
Nope...
BabyBoy3: 'You goin' work?'
Yup... <Wishes BabyBoy3 wouldn't do this every morning>
BabyBoy3: 'Ohhh' <Looks sad about this>
<Feels better and leans in to give BabyBoy3 a kiss>
BabyBoy3: 'AHHHCHOOOO' <Full body sneezes>
<Is covered in snot> ... thanks... <Wipes face>
Except today!
Today I have a day off workingtons. Mrs. Amazing has urgent worky stuff to be there for, a peace summit between the warring clans of Ogres and Goblins, or something, and thus, like a beautiful wind on the sea, has flown off for work.
Leaving me with Boy10, Miss6 and BabyBoy3 to look after, feed and generally have a laugh with. Well that's my plan anyway. The first two bits may fall by the wayside.
But the having a laugh bit I am totes going for.
(I was told off by someone yesterday for using 'totes'. He was mid-twenties and claimed I shouldn't be using such words at my age. I told him he couldth stickth his head up his bum and smeg right off. I'll word it reet up how I iz wanting blood! We totes laughed about it together).
The first hurdle.
The first hurdle.
To our day of fun though was breakfast. They all needed another round of it. I don't breakfast, tummy issues. But that's OK everyone else in the house makes up for me, and has two.
This was round two. Pancakes are generally a winner for them all. But they had all been a bit painful about pancakes recently.
So before slaving away at the stove making loads of pancakes, only to have to throw them all away later. Annoying. I went round and checked pancakes were wanted.
BabyBoy3 started chanting 'PAN-CAKES! PAN-CAKES!' and punching the air on each beat. He's in.
Miss7 was less convincing as I had to offer pancakes thricely, until she stopped replying with cereal, and got pancake excited.
And Boy10 reluctantly removed his headphones, yet carried on playing Fortnite as he was twenty billionth this time and didn't want his concentration interrupted.
He did manage to focus on me, offering him breakfast, for free, for long enough to say he was in though. Thanks dude.
Pancakes was ago!
I say pancakes.
I say pancakes.
There are pancakes involved. Obvs. I cook them and make them. To size order.
You can have big, medium and small, or snowflake shaped. Basically your option is limited to what pans we have. But it’s not the pancakes themselves that the kids love.
You can have big, medium and small, or snowflake shaped. Basically your option is limited to what pans we have. But it’s not the pancakes themselves that the kids love.
No.
It’s the Golden Syrup.
It’s the Golden Syrup.
Which they all love. None of them would even touch pancakes that were not slathered in either Golden Syrup or sugar and lemon. It's all about the Golden Syrup.
The pancakes are a good front though. It’s a lie we are all happy to believe.
Team Parent (yay!) believe we are giving them a filling carb packed home cooked breakfast of flour, eggs and milk. Brilliant!
And the kids known that there's gonna be loads of sugar, in some form, on the boring pancakes. I even cook them in butter for them.
We all accept the lie, because it works for all of us.
Shhh… tell no one...
(It’s not perspective, that is a huge Golden Syrup tin…
About the size of BabyBoy3’s head...)
Pancakes were had.
And eaten. In fact they were demolished. BabyBoy3 ate as much as Boy10 did, and he eats a lot. Miss7 had enough pancakes to need a banana afterwards. Meh. Can’t win them all.
But after the pancakes came the dreaded question.
The question I had no real answer for. What are we doing today?
Obvs. I had some ideas. But really I am just trusting I can make something up realllll quick.
Obvs. I had some ideas. But really I am just trusting I can make something up realllll quick.
I like the danger.
It was Boy10 that needed to know what was in store for him that day. (He’s like that, like Mrs. Amazing, need to know).
It was Boy10 that needed to know what was in store for him that day. (He’s like that, like Mrs. Amazing, need to know).
Boy10: ‘Dad?’
<Is cleaning, singing and dancing round the kitchen>
… union's been on strike… he's down on his luck, it's tough, so tough…
Boy10: <Waves in my face> ‘DAD!’
What? <Turns down music>
Boy10: ‘What are we doing today? What’s the plan?’
Huh? Pl-a-n… A what?
Boy10: ‘Plan. What’s the plan today. You know what a plan is, don’t pretend you don’t know what a plan is. PL-A-N. What are we doing today?’
… And you are?
Boy10: ‘DADDY!’
Fine! I have no plan...
Boy10: <Face goes a little white> <Eye twitches slightly>
And I didn’t.
I was plan less. Despite having eight hours ahead of me with three children. I had no plan.
And it felt good.
For me it feels good because at work they’ve always got a plan for me. Most of my time is planned out for me. So if I have a day off? … Well for me that should be non-planned time.
FREEDOM! <Paints blue cross on face, puts on Mrs. Amazing’s skirts>
All three of them looked up.
All three of them looked up.
Once Boy10 had asked what we were doing today. Everyone looked at me (the three children that is, not the global populous). Wondering what was going to come out of my mouth.
I like to believe they were looking at me with hope in their hearts that sometimes I have ideas that are so fun they could make your head explode just by hearing them. And they thought that might be happening today.
I like to believe they were looking at me with hope in their hearts that sometimes I have ideas that are so fun they could make your head explode just by hearing them. And they thought that might be happening today.
But really it was because the person with all the power, money, resources, and the only one that can reach really high stuff was about to say what the days plan was.
What do you lot want to do?
Miss7 is a sharp cookie.
It has been discussed before here: ‘A Sharp Cookie’. (And surely I meant smart cookie?) (And how did you know my name is Shirely?)
A smart cookie. And Miss7 knows that being first with a idea can make the idea happen.
She was straight in...
Miss7: ‘SWIMMING!!!’
She was straight in...
Miss7: ‘SWIMMING!!!’
BabyBoy3 is instantly on side with this plan and starts his now signature move of punching the air and shouting ‘SWIM-MING! SWIM-MING!‘.
Boy10 is less keen because he can see the problem that is just occuring to me.
We have no wheels.
OK. I am making that sound a lot cooler than it is.
We do not have the car as Mrs. Amazing took it to get to work.
We’ve plenty of wheels. We’ve scooters galore. But we don’t have the car.
We could take the bus to the swimming pool, which BabyBoy3 would utterly love.
But it’s the going home part that is a problem. Waiting for a bus with an exhausted probably needing a sudden wee BabyBoy3 and a knackered and tired out Miss7, and tired Boy10.
Well that sounds fun level punch in the groin zero.
Plus there’s another problem.
Plus there’s another problem.
There’s three of them and only one of me and me. Which could make being in the pool pretty tricky.
Boy10 swims great. But the other two are pretty drowny.
And of late I’ve been trying to increase BabyBoy3 confidence around water.
Which has worked! Yay! Too well. Boo…
He’s now fearless and doesn’t listen. And Miss7 is tired already so is likely to be Queen Grump in the pool. And I can see each of them running different ways towards very deep water.
AND NO. NO THANKS.
No swimming I tell them all.
No swimming I tell them all.
BabyBoy3 stops mid fist in the air and cries. I hug him a bit, but he quickly stops.
Miss7 (still cookie-sharp) suggests park.
We could scoot there I realise.
We could all scoot there. I’ve a scooter too.
WE COULD ALL SCOOT!
PLAN!
We have a great day. And by the time Mrs. Amazing comes back:
We have a great day. And by the time Mrs. Amazing comes back:
We are all still alive. #Win
We are all muddy from the park:
We’ve had lunch in town at Subway. I made the fussy one’s eat theirs later.
We’ve done watercolour (splodges) painting.
We’ve played and done jobs in the garden.
We played hide and seek around the house, which was hilarious.
We watched three episodes together of Dragon Ball Z.
We discovered BabyBoy3 thinks Cricket is Football and he cheats at both.
We ate LOADS of a few chocolate eggs.
We’ve all knackered.
<Bows>)
I love it when a no-plan comes together.
<Lights huge cigar>
<Remembers all the kids are watching...>
<Runs>
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