"Worms and Open Windows"

Saw Eggie in his play about Worms today.  He was a 'narrator' and Dumpie and I were sat in the very front row proudly looking on.  (Well I say 'sat' but actually Dumpie chose to stand for most of the performance, leaning casually on my knee and noisily chomping various foodstuffs whilst turning around occasionally to loudly announce 'Me Like Dat' when a particular song or dance took his fancy. 

That he was wasting a much-coveted front row seat didn't go unnoticed by surrounding parents - a situation made all the worse when he decided to use the seat to lay and display all his little treats...much like one might lay a picnic.  He had a peanut butter sandwich, some dried fruit, a juice drink, some wafers, and two 'be-bops' - one of which he noisily slurped throughout the performance and one which he tried valiantly to give to Eggie - despite it being mid-performance.  

"Eggie...be-bop!  Eeeeegggggiiiiiieeeeee BE-BOP!!" he'd yell when Eggie was on stage, trying to ignore the screaming little chicken.  As this is a skill he has become rather adept at, he did a remarkably good job blanking him.  Not so some of his fellow classmates - one of whom almost lunged out and grabbed the lollipop following a particularly heartfelt plea on Dumpie's part.

School got out early and Eggie had one of his little friends over for a 'playdate'.  While in the kitchen baking chocolate chip cookies, I noticed torrential rain hammering down on the window.  I then saw Dumpie stagger by, soaked, and wondered why on earth he was outside mucking about in the pouring rain.

A closer inspection revealed that Eggie's little friend had unwound and turned on our giant water hose and was in the process of playing 'fireman' - soaking all of them and all possessions unfortunate enough to be currently outside, in the process.  A little while later, I managed to get the boys fairly dry and shepherded them to the table to sit down for some fresh-from-the-oven, gooey chocolate morsels.  Egg promptly upended an entire glass of milk onto his friend's lap, who then started crying and got upset that Egg wouldn't say sorry or even acknowledge that the incident had occurred.

Mopping the little boy down I wondered how much worse things could get.  I didn't have long to wait for the answer to that particular musing, for not twenty minutes later, while scrubbing the last of the dishes, I heard, "Jake's Mummy...Jake's Mummy...Jake just threw Dumpies ball in the street!"

I wondered what he could be talking about since we finally had the good sense to put locks on the giant French windows in our second floor lounge, as parental pressure had forced us to concede that it was a potential death trap for two little rambunctious and clever boys who could any day now end up tragically falling to their death on a busy street (like poor Eric Clapton's young son).  

I raced upstairs to the boys bedroom on the THIRD level of our house and stopped in the doorway in absolute horror as I saw both Egg and Dumpie leaning their heads out the window arguing about the ball down in the street below.  The little boy had apparently been 'hot' and thus thought it reasonable to climb the little table, undo the locks and open the giant windows. 

Oh yeah, and after that near heart attack, I spent the next three hours trying to help the boys assemble a decent toy train track out of FOUR sets of tracks, none of which go together, and all of which are missing pieces.  Any headway we made was randomly and infuriatingly 'stopped in it's tracks' (scuse the pun...it's been a long day) as Dumpie followed behind dismantling in our wake.  

Kind of takes futility to a new level.

I'm going to bed.