It’s currently the Saturday morning four weeks on from when I cheated death on the kiddies roundabout at the local swing park. It’s unlikely that I’ll get to publish this today so I’ll have to think of a Sunday Showtune title and hope that I can get it out there before I need to prep the veg for the roast dinner tomorrow.
Nap time has been brought forward by a few hours today because we’ve been invited to a barbecue next door in order that we can get to know the neighbours on the other side a bit better. Daddy Simon is taking advantage of the fact that the babes are slumbering and is snoring his head off next to me in bed. I’m only here because it looks like North Korean missile testing ground downstairs but that’s the price I pay for getting a slightly longer lie in at the weekend. I could go down and tidy up a bit but it’s highly likely there’s breakfast debris under the array of toy cars, stuffed animals and empty stain remover containers that seem to be the favourite play item at the moment.( Needless to say there are plenty of them.) and I can’t trust myself not to started hoovering and waking the whole house up.
I’m not sure what to expect this afternoon. It’s not really barbecuing weather which means that there may be quite a bit of time in a house where we don’t really know the people ( who don’t currently have kids) with two incredibly nosey toddlers. I’m not sure that we’d fare much better if the sun was shining and we could all be outdoors. We’ve got a bit of a restricted view of their back garden from the bedroom window but we can see a glass fronted fish pond and a number of different garden ornaments and implements that are just begging be investigated and/or climbed upon.
Since we’ve not socialised before I can’t be sure what the policy on alcohol consumption will be.If they’ve heard our recycling bin being emptied- sounds like a six car pile up at the back of the bin lorry every other Monday morning- they’ll be more than aware that we enjoy a glass or two of a weekend.
My offer to bring anything was politely declined but I think that we’ll take in a bottle of Prosecco and see how we go with that. We can always pop back for more if it’s looking like it’s going to be that sort of afternoon. Unfortunately we’ve scoffed the emergency box of chocolates that I keep at the back of the cupboard weeks ago and didn’t bother replacing because invariably the replacement would befall the same fate. So unless Rip Van Winkle zips down to Tesco before we go, it’ll just be a bottle of Lidl’s finest and a couple of freshly recharged kiddie winks that we’ll be taking in. I thought about baking a cake yesterday but my train of thought was rudely derailed when I had to separate the fifty third wrestling match of the day.
Maybe I should have dozed. I’m quite sleepy now. I could get up and have my shower now but I’m not sure what I’m going to wear. My under active thyroid has slowed my metabolism. My broken foot has restricted whatever exercise I was able to squeeze into a day and my lack of will power has me doing regular audits of the biscuit jar every other time I hobble through the kitchen. So my thirty two inch waist trousers are all hanging in the wardrobe sniggering and the 34 inch waist ones are all in a box in the loft saying to one another ” We did say we wouldn’t be up here for long!”
Pants! (That fit!) Really need to get up and on with it. Maybe if I have a cold shower I’ll shrink a bit.
I’ve found a pair of 32 jeans with a stretch waist. I’m sure that the ‘stretch’ gave up the good fight a while back but an untucked shirt sufficiently masks the war that it waged. Daddy Simon has covered lunch duties – Alexandra can obviously sense that we’re heading out as she’s just picked at a bowl of pasta that she would normally have ploughed through which means that she’ll be troughing at any nibbles that will be within reach later. Daddy Simon goes off to get himself ready and I get the kids dressed.
Calder is getting very independent these days – wants to do everything for himself which means everything takes about nine times as long to do as would normally. I get him into his shirt and shorts before he demands ” Calder do!” so it’s he’s only got to put on his socks and shoes PROVIDING he doesn’t take his shirt and shorts off and starts from scratch. Alexandra has had a pre lunch nappy change so I can keep an eye on Calder and dress Alexandra whilst she’s glued to the TV. It’s a bit like trying to get a pretty frock on a bag of potatoes but she’s sufficiently distracted that she’s not arguing over what I’ve decided to dress her in. We had a full on meltdown last Saturday over a lemon and white dress with pears patterned around the skirt. She was adamant that the pears were upside down and very insistent that they be repositioned. Of course they weren’t but when she was holding her skirt up in front of her – no idea why – they did if course look upside down to her. It took some time and a couple of distractionary techniques in order that we could get on with the day – but it did amuse her Daddies! She’s all done without complaint but that’s only because she’s still engrossed in Topsy and Tim’s Saturday crisis – it’s the same one that they had on Tuesday and twice on Thursday.Calder has now got his socks on inside out and his shoes on the wrong feet so I need to find a way to rectify that without him thinking that it’s time to get undressed and have him stripping down to his nappy again. Daddy Simon appears freshly showered, dressed and ready to go, which means that the Berney- Edwards are very unusually ready to roll a full thirty minutes before departure time. But Alexandra wants to go NOW! A full on kicking the ‘baby gate in’ tantrum!! It’s got to hurt – she’s only wearing her daft wee canvas shoes. I’m conflicted about which life lesson to lecture her on here. I’m leaning more towards the one that her tantrum is hurting her more than it is me and decide to leave the ‘if you were wearing the Clark’s shoes that cost a pigging fortune that wouldn’t hurt’ for another occasion.
Daddy Simon to the rescue – he’s downloaded the CBeebies Summer Social so the tantrum subsides but will no doubt re-ignite when we have to peel her away from her favourite tv characters live(ish) in concert in about 23 minutes.
I do hope that they’ll be doing drinks on arrival next door.
It’s Sunday now and I think that it’s fair to say that yesterday went swimmingly well.The weather was much kinder that we were expecting and enabled us to sit and eat outside. Our hosts were fantastic and had invited the couple on the other side of them so we were able to spend some time getting to know them too. Alexandra and Calder did us proud and were content to explore the immediate area, play with the toys that we had taken and generally charm the pants off the grown ups in the company. Oh – the fizz flowed freely and I find that always helps in these situations.
Crisps and nibbles were on a low level table dangerously within view of the little munchalots but they didn’t even attempt to help themselves until given permission to do so. Of course they made it perfectly clear they were aware of the presence of the savouries by circling the table drooling like a pair of rabid Rottweilers and once they were given the go ahead there were keen to sample all on offer – including the dips. There was a great selection of barbecued foods and salads and the kids were happy to graze from our plates thus they were able to try most things without there being loads of waste. Chocolate Pots were served for dessert and this also served to remind me why I usually wear shorts around the little people.
We wound the evening up around sevenish exchanging pleasantries and promises to host at ours in the near future and toddled off up the drive and then back down our own.
Daddy Simon got the kiddies ready for bed whilst I cleared a path through the sea of discarded toys to sort out bedtime milk and a couple of light refreshments for Daddies!!!
Bedtime went without hiccup and I had no dinner prep to do so I topped up our glasses and we got ready to binge watch our latest boxset addiction – we managed a poxy two episodes before it became apparent that our own ‘sleepy bye-bye time’ wasn’t far off.
Today has been a very lazy one. We’ve just enjoyed the company of the kids,eaten well and been able to recharge our batteries in preparation for the week ahead.
I’ve been even been able to wriggle out of making a roast dinner in favour of a take away curry but before I sign off I have a confession to make…
When we came in last night I took a bit of a notion for a bacon roll. Fortunately there was no bacon in the fridge and I was able to convince myself that I could hold off until lunch time tomorrow and enjoy a bacon and egg roll. So I got the few rashers of bacon that had been roaming around the freezer for the past few months out to defrost overnight and retired to the sofa to spend the rest of the evening pondering whether the eggs should be fried or scrambled and fretting as to whether there would be sufficient butter although in all likelihood I would smother the bacon in tomato sauce anyway….. Unless – there was always the brie that I could melt over the crisply grilled bacon… I think a few characters were bloodily annihilated in our programme but I didn’t care – I could practically hear that bacon sizzling as they gasped their last breaths.
Daddy Simon announced that he would sort out the lunch today and my second mistake was to let him do so.
You see it wasn’t the bacon that I had set free from the icy hinterland. It was in fact a couple of ( tenderised – therefore very thin!) pork loin steaks.I had to eat a huge slice of humble pie because Daddy Simon has made this error on two occasions in the past and I have rolled the story of him enjoying a pork chop sandwich as a breakfast on numerous occasions…
Well smug doesn’t begin to cover it. He practically danced around the kitchen as he fried up the treacherous pig assuring me that a pork roll was more delicious than I could ever imagine.I could only concentrate my energies into overseeing Alexandra and Calder polish off their fish fingers and sink my Sunday Bloody Mary silently.
Karma can be a right sow sometimes!
Sunday Chillin’
Workers on their break.
Twinning at Parenthood 
Never a dull moment in your house.x. 😘
LikeLike