These Are The Days

Today was one of those days that was plagued with escape fantasies. Several times I found myself imagining the thrill of racing down two flights of stairs, hurling myself out the front door, and running as fast as i could down the street.... away from the wailing, screaming and moaning. Today was a hard day.

I am very fortunate (although she is not) that Auntie Ba is a weary insomniac these days. If she were not, there is NO WAY I would be able to bribe her over here morning after morning with cappucino's. I mean, my cappucinos are good but no way are they THAT good. She knows what she's getting into but it probably dawns anew each day as she puts her keys in the lock.

This morning I again sat biting my nails and rocking hunched over at the kitchen table trying not to go out of my mind while playing with the Play-Do with Egg. The Play-Do Ritual consists of Egg standing over me and demanding that I fashion him various foodstuffs and animals from the one colour he has left....flourescent pink. You see he regularly hides great chunks of the stuff around the flat and then forgets where he hid them. To date none have been found. After my umteenth bright pink vegetable pie the novelty does start to wane.

Sometimes he allows me a snack break and is content to sit and crunch pomegranates with me. Yes, it takes a grueling 20 minutes or so to propertly peel a pomegranate (my snack of choice these days...okay, for the past 6 months...i admit it I'm addicted - a heavy user - I comb Marks & Spencers all over the city and clear out the fresh produce section of as many pomegranates as i can carry home..but that's another story...another blog) Egg and I silently sit...munching... staining our fingers and clothes with the bright red juice. He loves pomegranates almost as much as i do.

Today was such a beautiful spring-like sunny day, that Auntie Ba and i took the boys out to the park and to the dreaded evil 'playhouse'. The scary moms were there with their even scarier children and Ba and I retreated to a wooden bench in the sun to observe our little Egg with all the junior hooligans. Luckily nothing major happened and we took off around 3:30 and went home to allow Egg to resume tearing our flat up and destroying more of our stuff. (Jay's beloved black designer shades died a sudden and sad death the other day when Egg snuck them out of his jacket pocket while on one of his many 'time out's' on the stairs and promptly broke the frames in half. Poor jay. And all this glorious sunshine! Will have to lend him one of my retro pairs. Maybe the ones with the bright red frames. Those should go down well at his new place of employment in Londons posh Mayfair.

Speaking of Jay's work, we had a family outing on Saturday to buy some sharp new threads for Jay's sharp new job and that was interesting. At several points Egg unstrapped himself from his pushchair and snuck off - once or twice almost escaping the store through the back door, and several times neccesitating chases past crowded customers and between racks of overpriced trousers.

Finally, at our second last stop on Carnaby Street (the Vans store) Egg proceeded to systematically take apart a large black leather sofa, cushion by cushion, while jay and i were preoccupied with the salesgirl. When we finally noticed what he had done, jay had to hurriedly hunt around the store and try and locate all the various cushions which Egg had cunningly hid,and try and surreptiously put it back together again under the annoyed eyes of the watchful staff. All the while I was pinned to a chair by our heavy baby Dumpie and Egg giggled and ran around like a crazed munchkin. Fun. Now I know why mail order was invented. I get it.

Well i'm off to bed. I've past exhausted, have done shattered and am rounding third base into paralytic. Will let you know what that's like some other time. Night all. Sleep well. I know i won't.