Name That Disaster

Yesterday was a Bank Holiday Monday and Jay and I started it off in style by playing our usual weekend morning game of 'Chicken'. Basically how it works is Egg runs rampant through our flat unsupervised, and all manner of sounds can be heard (anything from breaking glass, to scraping chair legs, to water running, etc.) and we have to guess which disaster might be befalling our home at that moment. If we're right the other person has to go clean it up, and if we're wrong, well - that person usually has to go clean it up as well, given that they're already out of bed and surveying the mess. The 'Chicken' element comes into because we like to see how long we can hold out before racing downstairs and uttering the inevitable,

'Oh! My! God!' or the popular, 'EEEEEEEEGGGG!!'

We are experts at this warped little domestic game now and can often hold out for up to half an hour at a time. Of course this lands us in all sorts of trouble but as we lazily survey each other across our comfy king size million sprung mattress we smile wryly and just shake our heads in dismay at how far we've fallen.

Not for us the fun-packed famiy days out which begin at 6:30am for our friends when the first child wakes up. No, we just dose Noah up on more milk and put him back to bed. As for Egg, we are not completely heartless parents. We do of course lay out a bowl of cereal and his beloved Play-Doh set first thing before burying ourselves back under the cozy 110 tog duvet cover for more secret snoozing.

Yesterday was rather typical. Jay lost out the first round when he ran downstairs to confront a turd-laden kitchen chair courtesy of our first-born. One solitary example of his finest fecal work laid pleasantly and honestly out on the blue fabric so as best to show its form. Nice. Much later Jay again gave into his combination of horror and curiosity when he leaped out of bed to the insistant clicking of what sounded suspisciously like the gas ignition on the stove. He was correct. Egg was up on the counter, brow wrinkled in concentration, trying to figure out how to send this old building up in flames.

So we did what any self-respecting parents would do and decided to get drunk. We herded ourselves out of the house in record time and made our way through light rain over to our local Turkish joint for a bottle of fine, smooth Crianza and some delicious food. Planted by the huge windows, watching the rain fall and getting slowly and deliciously inebbriated was just what the doctor ordered. Later as we fell back into bed for 'Family Nap Time' we celebrated a day devoted to Idleness and with our bedroom door firmly shutting out the disaster which is our flat, we could pretend, for a little while, that we were a normal, clean, well-adjusted family. Which I'm sure we will be one day when we grow up.