"The Morning After" (Champagne and Coffee Tales in KL)

You know that clever commercial, created somewhere in Scandanavia i think, where a frenzied parent in a crowded store tries to deal with his screaming, out of control children...and it's advertising birth control?  Well this morning could have been another follow on commercial for condoms - advising young people to pause mid-lust and reconsider the repercussions of an unexpected pregnancy.

The husband, monsters and I are in Kuala Lumpur (or 'Palla Lumper' if you're Dumps) for just shy of two weeks, waiting for our Indian visas and security clearances to go through, so we can head back to Goa. An old friend from London kindly invited us to stay in his lovely, centrally located three bedroom apartment for the duration, and we have been ever so grateful for his hospitality, but nevertheless have reserved a room at a local hotel from tomorrow, so as to leave while still on a (sorta) high note, rather than have him hating us and tearing up future Christmas cards from us forever more.

To be fair, I guess the worst they've done is have a shower fight with the hose in his ensuite bathroom, help themselves liberally to his miniature KitKat supply in the fridge, and totally commandeer his sofa for their dvd-watching pleasure...but still.  Any minute now it could be ink stains, broken knick knacks or chucking something over the third floor balcony (a favourite pastime of Dumps).  So we're getting out while the goings good.

But this morning was another matter.  Last night (in celebration of our soon departure?...but can't be sure) a gorgeous bottle of Dom Perignon was opened on the balcony and enjoyed with blissful sighs of appreciation.  As was a gorgeous bottle of red.  And a killer blueberry vodka concoction.  And some ice cold beer (this is round about when yours truly bowed out of the festivities...deciding that when every other word was proving too difficult to pronounce let alone understand - even for me, the utterer - then I should leave before the contents of my stomach ended up somewhere in the vicinity of a pink porcelein bowl).

Sometime after that the whiskey apparently came out, and then who knows, another whole booze-iacal rotation may have been set in motion.  But what is known is that the husband woke me up while crashing (and i do mean crashing) into bed this morning sometime between the hours of 5am-6am.  I lay awake, unable to get back to sleep for the next hour and a half.  At which  point the monsters arose, and with it, any chance of nursing my hangover with the respect it deserved.

A game the husband and I are known to play, a game of 'who is least capable to do childcare right now' thus ensued...and damnit...I lost.  (Knew I shouldn't have bowed out so early last night.)

So the husband snored on, oblivious, and I fashioned an emergency breakfast out of a few packs of raisins and some semi-stale Ritz crackers, while throwing a dvd into the the boys newest gadget - a mini dvd player bought at one of KL's millions of malls a few days ago.  All the while I attempted to hold the contents of my head in, and maintain a coherent ichat with my sister across the world - amused but by no means surprised to hear how once again I wasn't coping too well.

So all I'm saying, is that if someone had filmed 'the morning after' when you HAVE children, and a lie-in is an impossibility, i bet you anything those pre-teens queuing up to sprog littlun's, might just have a re-think.

As for me?  Well, it's late afternoon now and we're bandying about the idea of taking the monsters bowling.  Though to be honest, what I'd REALLY love to do right now would be to take my laptop, earphones, and go next door to 'Gloria Jean's Coffee' (a fab gourmet coffee place - I can always sniff them out) and pretend that the frazzled, pained-looking man following behind, dragging two screaming children and trying desperately to hide from the hot midday sun behind some battered RayBans, is NOT my partner in crime...and not requiring my assistance to get through the day in one piece.