Wednesday 30 September 2009

"Destined for Dirtiness"

Our new cleaner (a lovely Lithuanian woman who has only been here twice so far, and is indeed the fifth cleaner we've had in the past few years) yesterday announced that she is pregnant.

This would explain why she texted last week to say she was sick and couldn't come.  (And here I was thinking that it was yet another in the string of notorious texts from cleaners making up all manner of excuses why they can no longer clean our shambolic home.)

Having gone through this once before with our beloved Polish cleaner Dorothy, it is not fun having a pregnant cleaning lady.  For starters, there is the gut-crushing guilt that someone in 'that' condition is heaving hoovers up three flights of stairs and breathing in all sorts of potentially toxic cleaning fluids (sigh).  Then of course there is the fact that you feel obliged to 'help out' - thereby rendering the whole idea of roping in help kind of pointless.

I did what anyone would do when faced with such a predicament.  I reached into my wallet and gave her a pay raise on the spot, all the while calculating her due date and realising with dismay that we'd be lucky to have her stay on till Christmas.  

Still, that's not the least of my worries...not even close.  Dumpie has taken to foraging for bits of old chewing gum and popping them into his mouth to achieve a once again soft consistency.  I was alerted to this today when leaving the library and proudly being shown a piece of bright green chewing gum in his mouth, which he no doubt procured on the floor behind the 'New Fiction' aisle while I wasn't looking.  URGHH!!!!

Dumpie is also going through his 'Terrible Two's' and as such is terrorising the household.  

The other day in church we actually got kicked out (in as much as one can be politely asked to depart and cease disruption in the house of God.)  Unfortunately it was an 'All Ages' service - which though fine in theory is actually a nightmare.  As horrific as it was to observe them racing up and down the aisles during the hymns, this was nothing compared to the humiliation of witnessing their very public wrestling match right up in front of the alter a short while later.

Auntie Mo and I each grabbed one under an arm and shuffled our disgraceful selves out of there in full view of the congregation.

Sometimes my life seems like an unsuccessful sitcom about to be cancelled after it's first season.  Truly.

3 comments:

  1. Absolutely hilarious! I know my boys would do exactly the same thing. In fact Johnny Drama chews discarded gum of any age and from any source on a regular basis. And I regularly have to concede defeat and slink out of the Kabbalah Centre during Shabbat due to their disruptive shennanigans. Oh and my cleaner has just left due to pg - her baby is due in October. Seems we are living a mirror of each other's lives right now in some respects!

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  2. We must never get our bundle of boys together. The world would not make it out unscathed.

    Mine have now decided that they can't wee inside, but must instead whip their trousers down outside, preferably when there are passer-bys and have a competition to see who can wee the highest. Tragically Luke can't do it very well, so spends most of the time peeing all over his trousers. Proof that washing urine sodden clothes continues long after they are potty trained.

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  3. haha like it. Visiting from Australian blog. Wanted to find some good british bloggesses to read.. follow some great aussie ones and a couple of american ones, but I always have liked British humour. look forward to reading more!

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