‘Stop it now mummy, you’re scaring us’

when there were 3.....

another little one came along....

and then there were 4....(2009)

Last night, there was an almighty storm. The dog, terrified, curls up on the sofa in our room to sleep, the cats are hidden in cupboards (that is when they are not on the stake out for corners to pooh in), the chickens quite literally going boc wild (sorry, had to get that in!), and the kids waking/sleeping intermittently.  My eldest daughter, Lola, 5, informed me this morning that at one point she had come down the stairs, couldn’t rouse Alex or me, so took herself off to get a drink (still unsure what she drunk….), to find some socks and a jumper all by her little self and get herself tucked in and back off to sleep. This would be extremely cute and very self sufficient, which it is, but at the same time it is also a wee worrying. My 5 year old gets up, dressed and serves herself to a drink, potters around, then goes back to bed, without me stirring……this is not good. I will now vow to taking a thermos of coffee to bed with me, and lie awake all night, couple of espressos as stimulant, just in case……..One normally thinks, ‘ooooh wouldn’t it be nice if every time they wanted something in the night, they could just not wake us up and make us do it, they could do it all for themselves’ and then the minute they actually do that, now, there is noooooo way you are going to sleep ever again, for fear of the house catching light as they get midnight munchies and try to cook themselves something…….! The mind races.

I occasionally feel the need to hover above my life, look down and get a perspective back……(I do not actually suspend myself from the ceiling, I am speaking metaphorically). There are moments when I am so completely drowned out by noise, children, dogs, cats, chickens, rain…….! That I definitely feel that were I to rise above it all, I will then be able to regain my mental strength….! My ritual when the house reaches this level of turning even Florence and her knightingale (!) mental- seriously, a saint would flip- is to turn to the computer. No not to strap them all in seats to watch a DVD (although it has been known…..!), it is my intention to drown out the noise and settle the equilibrium by putting Stevie on, or reggae/bit of Bob, Jack Johnson/Jackson five- we like rocky robin a lot!- also often feature in my DJ sets…! Where there is music, there is a volume control, and I set it to max and sing, I imagine, somewhat scarily and dance even more scarily, to little kids who watch me in stupor with occasional pleas to ‘stop it now mummy, you’re scaring us’. But you see, it worked! They stopped their noise! There was a song on the radio for ages that Monty sang his heart out to. He was under the impression that the songwriter had written a song about socks. Well, they write songs about chickens, a boc boc boooo…..! (see earlier blog if you need an explanation, I am not being that random!) So Monty used to sing  “maybe there’s a sock in the water……”, which does not have quite the same ring as the actual lyrics “maybe there’s a shock in the water….”. Close, but it entirely changes the song’s meaning. There are some songs which are played that are highly inappropriate for my little ones’ ears, but the French gaily play them anyhoo. There is no restriction on language or of content. Thus my adapting lyrics, Gnarles Berkley sings about boccing chickens, Lily Allen is very grateful to her ex-boyf, ‘thank you, thank you very, very muuuuuuuch’, replacing, cleverly, the f yous with thank yous. But the favourite song of Mitzi (4) is entitled ‘she wants it’ she loves the song and sings enthusiastically ‘she wants it, she wants it ooo, she wants it, you’ve got to give it to her’ and my jaw drops. Radio channel switched, to a news station…..!

Hovering finished (note hovering, not hoovering, still got that to do!) I am well and truly placed firmly back in reality as a poorly Esmie is starting to cry upstairs, ‘twill be a looong night me thinks……..