Life In The Army

It's been a pretty chilled week (i know, i know, i just used the word 'chilled' in relating to my home life...). No, I have not suddenly begun a heavy course of valium - though I can certainly understand how it must have been a godsend for stressed ladies of yesteryear. Imagine, you could watch your home fall to pieces yet remain cocooned in a blissful haze of narcotic laissez-faire....ah...now that is tempting.

As for us, we're just getting on with the business of living. Nothing too exciting. I find all my extra time being sucked away by the mundane: phone calls, emails, paying bills, banking, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, reading mr. men books...you know, the usual.

Our big excitement this week was Auntie Ba's birthday, and even though Egg and I spent an hour laboriously wrapping her presents in the morning, and found a great hiding place for them, as soon as Auntie Ba walked in Egg tore downstairs yelling,

"Auntie Ba, Auntie Ba, we have two big presents for you hidden in mama's closet!!"

(sigh) I see we still have a long way to go in instilling the idea of secrecy and discretion in young master Egg.

Next week Jay's "Granny n' Gramps" (my fabulous in-laws) and Auntie Kris arrive on these shores for a brief pit stop before we all 'Eurostar' it over to Paris for several days. It shall be novel exploring this most romantic of cities with Egg and a teething infant in tow - but hey - given the superstrength 'cafe creme', free-flowing red vino and morning pain au chocolats, i'm willing to suspend judgement! Besides, there is no way the little people will win given that they'll be outnumbered 5 to 2...right?...right??! Egg is very taken with the idea of going on the 'choo-choo' to Paris and thanks to Auntie Ba has learned to count to ten in French (perhaps the pronunciation lacks a bit, but that's all part of the charm, n'est pas?).

Perhaps most of all though Egg is looking forward to the arrival of 'Gramps' and his play-doh. Given that 'Gramps' was the one who first introduced Egg to this lovely stuff, and kicked-off what has now become a morning ritual, 'Play-doh Time', his impending visit and impending new reserves of the colourful stuff are greatly anticipated and discussed daily.

Anyway, i'd best be off. Have a chubby chicken bouncing manically behind me in the door swing, and Egg has now disappeared upstairs for the better part of ten minutes, which means he's either found a secret chocolate stash and is shoving it gleefully into his mouth whilst crouched behind his bedroom door, OR, he is in our bedroom plugging in Jay's amp and gearing up for a solo bass performance. (And that's me being naively hopeful)

How exciting not to know what's going to happen one minute to the next...to always have to be on your guard while 'embracing the challenge of a lifetime'. My life these days resembles one of those army recruitment videos -minus the benefits and room for advancement of course.