You'd Think I'd Know Better

This afternoon, BB's friend from nursery was coming for lunch and some play. That's all fine and well. But on Saturday afternoon, in a mad moment of weakness, I offered up my house/garden for all of BB's nursery friends whilst we were at one of their birthday parties. (Incidentally, didn't Saturday afternoons once revolve around football. How the hell did I find myself in Dizzy Rascal's for a couple of hours - and at this point in the season too?!?)

I suppose it could have been worse. There are only 6 of them in total, and only one didn't come. So, here I was at lunch time today faced with four 4 year olds and a 3 year old, not forgetting LL too. Not one of them batted an eyelid as their parents sneaked off out the back door. Oddly enough, none of the mother's took a backward glance either......

Nevertheless, crack into it we did. One wee lad has a gluten and dairy intolerance. So today, they all got rather boring pancakes made with gluten free floor and soya milk. It all seemed to work out. So far so good. They even managed to play in 4 different places at once, yet only bloodshed was from LL's nose as he took a tumble on the living room floor. At least I didn't hurt someone's little pride and joy.

No real harm done though. 3 hours laters, the mum's arrived to find their kids alive and kicking, and my afternoon passed rather quickly too.

Like the Fish

Gutted!

I know we shouldn't be bothered, there are plenty people worse off than us and all that bollocks. But it's official, the holiday has been cancelled because those damn Icelander's are still burning our money to make big ash clouds.

BB has taken the news surprisingly well. After having both parents arrive home in consecutive weeks late, it's a bit more difficult explaining to him that the sky was "temporarily" fixed for mum to fly home on Sat morning, but now is broken again meaning we can't get away to the land of sunshine and swimming pools.

The downside, is that we so needed/wanted this holiday. MPLST's boss has been great and will let her carry over the leave until we can get a flight. The downside is that it'll cost us a fortune to go in the height of summer. On top of that, it'll be too toasty for my little while boy then too. If we leave it until autumn, he'll possibly see his 2nd birthday, meaning more spondoolas out of my pooch.
To rub salt into our wounds, Mother Nature kindly dumped a massive load of hailstones on us as we left the supermarket today after we decided that the fridge would need re-stocking as we are staying at home this week.

Being experienced North Sea Tigers, we'd quite happily be stranded somewhere else other than home, and abuse our plastic whilst the rest of the country gets into a flap. To be stuck here, just as the latest cold spell hits us is, well.......shite for want of a better word.

So, once the cameras are back working again....the pics will be of our rainy back garden, unless we can negotiate a seemingly unlikely last minute deal at the end of the week.....

I Got Tag Teamed

Just bloody marvelous. I thought I'd heard it all after sitting through 5 day fog delays only for pilots not to fly having "run out" of flying hours whilst sat on their arses smoking tabs. I've missed the odd check in because of trains being cancelled with the old leaves on the line trick. Today, I had to explain as best I could to a 3 year old that the sky was broken, and the planes and helicopters can't fly on a broken sky now, can they. Bloody Icelanders.....if they're not swindling our cash, they're stealing our wife and mummy. Bastards!

All of which is neither here nor there really. BB is lucky I've not throttled him in the last 24hrs. It all started going pear shaped about 1am this morning.....

....that's when my bedroom door burst open. For the first time. For what it's worth, I was having a great kip to that point. In fact I thought it must have been time to get up. Apparently I'd been out for only an hour or so. We wee shite was all coy and giggly as he explained his PJ's were wet. Great, full bed change required. I had to dig his spare sheets out from under the stairs. Still, not tears, no drama and off we all went back to sleep. Well, he did at least.

Then I saw 2am.....and 3am....head full of utter crap really. Work?? WTF? Sex - it's pointless thinking of that at 3am even when MPLST is lying next to me, but when she's 100 miles out to sea??? Football. Anything really, I just couldn't get to sleep. Imagine my displeasure at 3:10am, just as I am finally managing to drop off, when the door bursts open again to the tune of "I need a poo daddy." A number of things went through my head at this point - The little shit needs a shit at 3 o fucking clock in the morning!! Well go to the toilet and bloody have one then - that's what my body language must have said, I of course was far more caring in my actual reply. I had the pleasure of waiting for 10 mins, waiting on the "I need wiped" call, listening to a vast array of straining and groaning noises, absolutely none of which would remove the turd in question from his little backside, whilst getting a running commentary of it's not coming out, why it wasn't coming out and that it was stuck in his bottom and it wasn't coming out. Did I tell you daddy that my poo won't come out.

Off to our own beds we trotted again, only for me to see 4am, then 5 am. In fact I think I emailed MPLST and told her I was getting the train to Aberdeen today, because the drive home would kill me. Finally, my head stopped spinning with utter nonsense, only for the door to explode open with the happiest little well rested boy declaring "Daddy, it's morning. We must get up. Get up Daddy. Get up Daddy. I said get up. We must get up." This at 5:45am.

I'm nothing if not fair. I withheld the temptation to go for the sarcastic retort. Instead putting on my best smiley dad face, and explained it was still night time and it was time to go back to bed. At this point, the two most stubborn heads in our house collided. The little drama prince threw himself to the ground declaring "No! I won't. I won't go back to bed, Daddy. Don't tell me" This is a voice of utter venom like I was the bugger who pushed Humpty Dumpty off the wall in a past life.

I did find the cure though. Once reason was out the window, I smacked his backside and sent him packing. Alas, he didn't venture out on the the landing until I was up and about which ended up being after 9. I should have done it earlier.

I got my comeuppance though. LL's nappy had not contained this mornings number twos which was smeared all over his leg, sheets an carpet.
At least they are teaming up with each other - even if it is against me!

Pressure, What Pressure?

If for no other reason that to post a few pics of my loons, I must blog tonight. I've got sod all to talk about (but plenty to whinge about) - which will seem odd, as I'm sure this will be a long one.....

Her Ladyship has buggered off and left us again....for the second time in 3 days. Granted we knew about the first one, a long standing commitment to have a well earned weekend away on her bestest mates hen weekend. I couldn't really complain I suppose, since I've been abroad twice on similar weekends since the boys came along. In fact, I'm sure I had to ask permission for the first one when BB was a matter of weeks old. Great timing that was.

Had the boys been old enough to understand that dad is a truly grumpy sod when he comes off nightshift, they would surely have asked for a weekend at gran's instead. We did good though. I set about changing the drive belt on the mower with BB being my chief helper whilst LL was having a nap. You can see him checking if I had done a good job, before hogging the drivers seat, eager to go.

So far so good. Lots done by the time MPLST returned home. On Monday morning we set about going to the local tip with all out cuttings and weeds, only to arrive home and find out that MPLST's boss had called. It's never good when they call you on a Monday morning. An "emergency" trip offshore was requested. Bollocks! So, we saw her for all of a couple of hours before she buggered off and left us again. Simultaneously, I think that was all I had mentally prepared to fight in the tired stakes, so they have had the worst of grumpy dad for a day or so now.

Still, in the interests of keeping little boys happy, we drove to the "yellow park" in a village about 12 miles away today. This despite the fact there must be about 2 bloody dozen parks inside that radius closer to the damn house. But Tuesdays are for the yellow park apparently. Fridays are for the red, much more local one, it seems. The boys had a good time though. We stopped at Auntie K's on the way so I could get a much needed caffeine injection. Guess what's on in the corner of this room......

Tomorrow morning, BB is heading to his friends house and stopping for lunch. LL and I will head to toddlers, where, if there is any justice in the world, one of the yummy mummy's will have baked and will bring the results along, only for all the hip conscious ladies to refuse leaving lots of cake for fat boy here. Bring it on!

Before that though, I have to drag my sorry backside out of bed early with the kids to do the ironing I was supposed to be doing instead of farting around with this damn blog. I hope you appreciate the effort Arnie.

Two Sides to Every Story?

MPLST has never really been great at keeping secrets. This trip (I'm almost home), she appears to have been a very busy lady. Hoping as she does to deceive me, she didn't really mention a lot of what she was up to. My rather perceptive male intuition told me that she was up to something though, and as the questions flowed, she spilled the beans.

For the last fortnight, she has been busy finishing off decorating the playroom. Admittedly, I left the said room in a bit of a state. Painting unfinished, sockets to move, Sky connection to move etc.
Being the clever cookie she is, she decided (for both of us) that the carpet needed replacing, and bought a floor. Not only has she laid the floor, she's done a pukka job.....skirting's off and back on. Door posts trimmed. She even laid the floor twice finding irritating imperfections in the middle that she knew would bug her, and so laid it properly a third time. Now she's on with "customising" some of the furniture - the mind boggles at the thought.

The one thing she can't do is electrics. But her cunning plan to have the whole thing finished involved trading her skills to do some painting at her brothers house, whilst he sorted the electrics at ours. Not a bad swap really.

I on the other hand, can't get home tomorrow as my relief is not coming out. I thought I'd stop here another day - just to give her time to finish it properly!

So, is it true that she will do absolutely anything to avoid doing housework? Or is she genuinely enjoying a bit of home improvement?
What will the impact on the boys be I wonder. BB sees his mother as a builder at the moment, whereas I am the man who comes home to do the ironing.....