Milk and Mayhem

‘Am I going to preschool today?’ Asks Mayhem suspiciously as I sort through Milk’s uniform two days before term starts.

‘No. No one is going to school today.’

‘So, I’m not going to preschool ever, ever again?’

‘Errr. Yes, you are.’ I say shaking out Milk’s jumpers in the hope they will look new.

‘Awww this is the worst day EVER!’ cries Mayhem throwing himself on the sofa in a huff.

It is definitely not the worst day ever. I know because I have lived through several of those during this holiday.

My husband and I have somehow managed to survive six weeks with three boys on an average of four hours sleep a night.

Even the rabbits get more sleep than us, and they don’t have to make their own breakfast.

We have stumbled through most days in a blur of coffee and cake.

I never drank coffee before this holiday. I wonder what I will be shoving down my neck by Christmas.

As far as I’m concerned, the summer holidays are an opportunity to create a world away from school. A world of little structure, no time pressure, no rules. Just fun.

And this involves becoming sloths.

‘Are any of you going to get dressed?’ my husband says one day on his return from work.

‘Not really worth it now is it? Only two hours until bedtime.’ I reply throwing popcorn into my mouth as the boys scramble for the pieces I drop.

Milk and Mayhem have stopped using the toilet, and taken to throwing open the front door and peeing off the doorstep.

‘Not on my tomato plants!’ my husband calls from the bedroom as Milk aims with glee.

A lasting memory is a naked Mayhem racing towards me on a packed Suffolk beach screaming, ‘I need a wee! I need a wee! I need a wee!’ before relieving himself in the breakwater as toddlers and their paddling parents looked on in dismay.

I also discovered the sweet spot of child care.

As long as you don’t have to be anywhere at any particular time, acting normal, looking after three small children isn’t too bad.

However, in my effort to avoid leaving the house and the £100 ‘big days out’, we have pretty much destroyed our home.

Midnight has worked out how to open all the cupboards and particularly enjoys his Tupperware parties, and Milk and Mayhem have brought most of the garden inside.

I also wonder how we are going to wean the boys off ice cream – my husband’s holiday mantra is ‘it’s ice-cream time every time the sun comes out’, which this summer, it really did. A lot.

As September arrives the school run looms.

I don’t like the person I become on the school run.

I am the crazed woman marching along in porridge-stained baggy trousers, wild hair scraped into a bun, still trying to swallow a piece of dry toast I managed to shove in my mouth before we left the house.

I am the frantic one pushing the buggy too fast for my children to keep up, barking orders back and forth answering the same questions over and over again.

‘Come on we’ll be late; do you want to be late? Don’t run in front of that driveway. Did you even look? Milk leave that stick behind. Stop running! Walk faster. Slow down! No, we can’t pick blackberries now. I don’t know why that old man has no hair. Watch out for that dog poo! I don’t know, probably because the owner doesn’t want to pick up poo. That’s why I don’t want a dog. You want a dog? But you’re scared of dogs….’

As we get ready for bed the night before school, I ask the boys what the best part of their holiday was.

‘Playing,’ says Milk.

‘Ice cream,’ says Mayhem.

I think my best parts were probably the smallest things too.

Hold them close, they are going back to their other world now.

‘They know! They know!’ I mutter loudly as I stomp about the house with a handful of tooth brushes and a nit comb.

‘Shhhh! You’ll wake the kids!’ my husband says grabbing another bag from the pile in the hall.

‘That’s my aim,’ I grumble.

We are loading the car for our holiday. It is 6.45am and we are leaving in 15 minutes. All the boys are asleep.

My husband checks his watch. ‘How can they still be asleep? They never sleep past 5.30am. How is this happening?’

I shrug. ‘I told you. They know.’

Since having children, it would be a lie to call any of our holidays, holidays.

We tread the hopeful path of high expectations and excitement, but always slip into the ditch of irritability and disappointment.

And the whole thing has got increasingly worse with each child.

When we had Milk we went skiing, popped to see friends in Paris, flew to a remote mountain lodge in Switzerland, zipped over to Greece, and did the endless A39 drive to Cornwall.

Mayhem has never been on an aeroplane.

Midnight will be lucky if he gets out of the village.

But we think we have found the solution.

The Isle of Wight.

It’s sunny, full of dinosaur fossils, beaches and pirates. And you get to go on a boat, even if you only have time to get out of your car and stand watching your children pick up germs for 20 minutes in the soft-play, before getting off again.

On the way my throat feels tingly and I find it hard to talk.

‘Are we on Dinosaur Island yet?’ Milk says as we sit in traffic just outside Portsmouth.

‘No, we have to go on a boat to get there.’

‘Like a pirate ship?’ Asks Mayhem hopefully.

‘Yep.’ I say distracted by the swollen lumps on the side of my neck.

‘A real pirate ship?’ asks Milk seriously.

‘No. Not a real one.’

‘But you said we were going on a pirate ship!’ wails Mayhem.

‘I know I did, I don’t know why I said that.’

‘You are the worst mummy EVER!’ shouts Mayhem kicking the back of my seat.

On the boat we look at jelly fish bobbing in the wake.

‘What happens if there are cannon balls on the island and they eat us?’ Asks Milk.

‘I don’t understand what you are saying,’ I croak. ‘I have a sore throat.’

‘You know! Cannon balls – what eat people.’

‘Cannibals!’ I laugh and regret it instantly as I feel hot knives spearing the back of my mouth.

We unpack while Milk and Mayhem race around the garden waving pirate flags, and chanting, ‘beach, beach, beach!’

Midnight watches them, popping gravel into his mouth, like a kid eating popcorn at the cinema.

‘Take me to the hospital on the way please,’ I moan.

‘Happy holiday!’ My husband calls as he drops me off at the NHS walk-in centre.

The most vulnerable patients are seen first, so I spend two hours glaring at every snotty child and hobbling old person who steps into the waiting room. At last I hear my name.

‘Tonsillitis’ says the doctor as soon as I open my mouth. ‘Seven days of antibiotics for you. How long is your holiday?’

‘Six and a half days,’ I swallow.

‘Bad luck. You’ll just have to come back.’

My husband picks me up outside. They have been to Cowes to look at the boats and have somehow managed to spend £9 on three muffins.

“£9?!’ I manage to raise my voice.

‘I know I couldn’t believe it, but I had to buy them because Mayhem licked the tops while we were in the queue.’

I look at Mayhem. He is wriggling around in his car seat, trying to itch his bottom.

Two days later we make it to the beach and I spend my time crawling around in the sand trying to stop Midnight from eating seaweed, while Milk and Mayhem take it in turns to destroy each other’s sandcastles.

My husband strokes my back as I get up. ‘Are you having a happy holiday now?’

‘It’s not a holiday is it – not for me,’ I grumble. ‘I do this all the time.’

‘Well it’s not a holiday for me either,’ huffs my husband. ‘Because I’m just doing what you do, instead of what I do.’

‘Yeah but at least you are doing something different. They say “a change is as good as a rest.” I’m just doing exactly the same thing, with the same children, but in a different place, without all the things which make it easy.’

‘Except I’m here too. I’m here helping you.’ My husband says looking a little hurt.

‘Yes. Yes, you are.’ I agree and we cling to each other in sandy solidarity.

That evening we sit down for dinner.

‘The boys are exhausted’ says my husband offering me a glass of red wine. ‘They should sleep through…’

He is interrupted by Mayhem screaming ‘My bum! My bum!’

‘Shhhhh don’t wake the baby!’ I hiss.

‘My bum arghhhh, my bum!’ screams Mayhem running around the kitchen until my husband catches him.

‘His bum really hurts.’ My husband says after taking Mayhem to the toilet. ‘It’s really sore.’

I reluctantly put down my glass of wine and lie Mayhem on our bed. He is sobbing uncontrollably and grabbing at his bum.

I hand my husband a small torch.

‘What is this?’ He says suspiciously.

‘Look up his bum.’ I whisper, not wanting Mayhem to hear me.

‘Pardon?’

‘Quickly! Look up his bum!’

He does, and I watch his frown turn to deep repulsion.

‘Did you see a worm?’ I whisper.

My husband nods, grimacing.

I want to hit my head against the wall but I need to take my next antibiotic. I wash it down with the wine.

‘See. They know. Even the worms know.’

Happy Holiday!

 

 

 

It’s the Easter holidays and I can’t find my Easter egg.

It’s so well hidden I’m getting annoyed. I’m not doing an egg hunt like most families, I’m just trying to remember where I put my egg so my husband won’t find it.

He will hunt down and eat anything made of chocolate however sacred it is.

He once tried to convince me that someone had broken into our house and eaten the top layer of my Mother’s Day chocolates.

‘But if someone did break in, to eat my chocolates, surely they would take the soft caramel one – you know the one with the nut in the middle?’ I said as I examined the box.

‘That’s your favourite one,’ he said a little sheepishly. ‘Maybe they felt bad’.

He does have some sense of decency after all.

I am looking for my Easter egg because, despite being held hostage by three children for the last seven days, there is a rare lull in the chaos.

Midnight is asleep in his cot and the boys are playing shop in their bedroom.

‘£10 please,’ says Milk handing a lemon over to Mayhem.

‘That’s a bit small,’ says Mayhem.

It’s like seeing life post-Brexit.

I calculate I have around six minutes until the peace is shattered. There is plenty I could do in this time, and probably plenty I should do, but what I want to do is lie on the sofa drinking tea and eating cheap Easter egg chocolate, while watching Escape to the Country.

Silly really, as we live in a house surrounded by fields of sheep and I can’t find my Easter egg.

I settle for a cup of tea and stand by the kettle in anticipation. The boys start screaming just as I am stirring in the milk.

I pause for a moment unsure if I should sacrifice my tea at this point. The yelling could be a false alarm, like when I rushed upstairs to save Milk, only to find him holding out a piece of toilet paper, ecstatic that he’d wiped his bum on his own.

Or the screaming could be real, like when I found Mayhem stuck headfirst in the empty bath with his legs in the air.

Real emergency or not, if the boys carry on screaming, they will wake up Midnight, so I leave my mug of tea and head upstairs. I find Milk crying at the top.

‘What’s wrong darling?’

‘Mayhem called me an old fashioned light again.’

None of us have a clue what this insult means, but when Mayhem says it, it somehow seems hugely offensive.

‘Well you’re not an old fashioned light,’ I say stroking Milk’s hair.

‘He IS an old fashioned light!’ shouts Mayhem from the bedroom. ‘And you are an old fashioned light too Mummy.’ He adds.

It’s like being in a bizarre Easter panto. I wink at Milk and call back.

‘Oh no I’m not an old fashioned light, you are an old fashioned light.’

There is a blood-curdling scream. I jump up and race into the room to find Mayhem on the bed thrashing his arms around.

‘What’s happened? Have you hurt yourself?’

‘You called me an old fashioned light and I AM NOT AN OLD FASHIONED LIGHT!’ he screeches.

‘OK OK. No-one is an old fashioned light’.

We all go downstairs for a drink and a snack. As I sip my tea my husband calls the house phone.

‘How is everyone?’

‘You know. The normal. Did you eat my Easter egg?’

Silence.

‘I just need to know if you’ve found it and eaten it, because then I can stop looking for it.’

‘Well, you know how you refuse to wash my work shirts because it’s not your responsibility…?’

I suddenly remember shoving the purple foil deep into the dirty laundry.

‘Arghhh. You! You know what you are…’ I cannot find the words.

I know he wants to laugh, and I imagine him chuckling to himself as he finished off my egg.

The words finally come to me, as I grip the phone.

‘You! You are a massive, old fashioned light’.

 

 

 

 

 

‘For my birthday I’d like to sleep,’ I say out loud as Midnight wriggles and whines in my arms at 4am.

My husband rolls over and takes out his ear plugs. ‘Did you say something?’

It is rare for him to be next to me. He is usually negotiating with Mayhem in the middle of the night, trying to make him sleep on what we call the ‘floor-bed’.

I shudder as I remember sharing a bed with Mayhem. He is like a sleep-walking gymnast.

‘For my birthday I’d like to go to a place where you can lie down and sleep.’

‘I think they are called hotels,’ my husband says.

‘No. Hotels would mean talking to several people before you get to lie down. I just want to sleep.’

I look at Midnight. I have spent the last hour staring at his face like an exhausted witch trying to do a sleep spell, and he has nodded off while we are talking.

‘Don’t say anything!’ I scowl, jerking my head at the sleeping baby.

My husband looks a little afraid of me and watches as I assess my next move. I have to get out of bed without using my arms, to put Midnight in his cot in the corner of our room. My stomach muscles, which have been sliced twice and are currently under some ‘cosy cosy’ as Milk calls my fat, somehow work to help me sit upright.

I swing my legs off the bed and lean forward so Midnight is lying on his back in my arms. I pause and then creep towards the cot.

I am lowering the baby into position when my husband coughs. Midnight flings his arms out smacking me in the face.

‘You woke him up!’ I hiss, pulling the baby to my chest as he starts screaming.

I stomp back to our bed.

‘I’m sorry! I had to cough. It’s was an inappropriate involuntary action.’

‘How am I going to get him to sleep?’ I wail.

It’s a little tricky teaching a baby how to sleep when you can’t remember what sleep is.

My husband is fiddling with his phone and soon the room is filled with the soothing white noise of running water.

‘You might as well go and have a shower,’ I say looking at the time.

He agrees and disappears into the bathroom, leaving his mobile just out of my reach.

I am left listening to a real shower and a fake shower. I need a wee.

I hear footsteps and Mayhem appears in the doorway.

‘Captain Jack Sparrow takes off his hat when he sees dead pirates,’ he informs me. This is a common 5.15am conversation-starter for Mayhem.

‘Yes. Yes, he does,’ I manage a smile.

Milk joins us. ‘Why is bird poo white?’ he asks rubbing his eyes.

‘Let’s go and find out,’ I say putting Midnight over my shoulder.

He is sick down my back and onto my pillow. I consider cleaning it up but I imagine it will be dry by the time I get back into bed in 16 hours.

For my birthday my husband gets me a massage.

I fall asleep for a blissful hour and am so relaxed I only wake up when I let out a gigantic fart.

‘Inappropriate involuntary action,’ I think, keeping my eyes tightly shut.