"The Dumpie Dilemma"

Dumpie is currently slumped in front of the large screen telly in the front room.  He is there because we both need some 'alone time' given that he recently ingested an entire box of Mikado chocolate sticks.

The reason he was allowed to stuff his face with a chocolate-based product before 10am was directly related to the amount of 'mother guilt' I was suffering due to having earlier dragged him kicking and screaming into the doctors office to receive yet another immunisation.  He was terribly affronted when I pulled down his dark navy corduroy trousers to allow the nurse access to his chubby little thigh.  Furious, he watched her jab him quickly in the left leg, then unbeknownst to her, ducked out of the way just in time before he could swat her on the side of her head.  It was a close call.

Downstairs his wailing drew concern from a kindly receptionist who dipped into her personal supply to procure a chocolate for him in the hopes of getting him to cease and desist in his wailing...especially as it was obviously distressing the elderly man pacing anxiously in reception.  

I must confess I'm not in the best of ways these days either.  This is mostly due to the fact that a certain toddler is now making nightly visits to our marital bed.   From dawn onwards each day I find myself lying awake, ramrod straight, crammed in between an oblivious tossing and turning husband and a fleshy little carbunkle who insists on sleeping one of two ways: either face to face with his little arms wrapped snuggly around my neck (this is adorable for about 2 seconds) OR draped on top of me as if I am a small mountain.  

Sometimes I'll hear, "Mama hold me!" which means I must immediately turn about face and wrap my arms around him from behind as he curls and snuggles back into me.

Yes, yes, I KNOW that I should treasure these cuddly, precious moments before they are gone forever and I am a source of embarrassment and dismay instead of the glorified love object I appear to be at present.  And I know that Egg wasn't the most cuddly of babies and thus I openly longed for a child who would love to curl up and snuggle in my arms...but seriously...this is getting pretty extreme.

These days I can't even wear my favourite Topshop black and white striped top because even though I have a fairly modest cleavage, the cut of the piece shows what I do have to its' utmost advantage and drives Dumpie to distraction.  The last time I wore it Dumps spent the day nuzzling my chest and lovingly stroking the tops of my breasts in a proprietary fashion.  

Still, there are advantages to having such a precocious child.  There is no end to the constant amusement he provides.

The other day Dumpie wandered in casually wearing oversized bright orange plastic 'shutter' sunglasses and proffering a Nurofen Plus headache tablet (don't ask) to the husband who had earlier expressed dismay over the unfortunate onset of a cold, while the three of us had been lying in bed listening to the radio.  

And then that night just after midnight as we were about to turn off the lights we heard a strange noise.  Moments later outside our bedroom door we heard what sounded bizarrely like a A chord being strummed.  We weren't wrong.  In walked the Dumps, half asleep, clutching 'Teddy Bear' and his little guitar.  

He promptly climbed in bed, I hoisted the guitar from his hands and seconds later he was quietly snoring.  The husband and I looked at each other, too tired to laugh but terribly amused nonetheless.  Our little sleepwalker clearly has something of the musician in him.

Little Egg meanwhile continues to shine as 'class mathematician' and now burgeoning 'reader'. Last night I sat through an entire reading from "Green Eggs and Ham" as Eggs astounded me by reading the whole thing cover to cover.  

With any luck in a month or two I can hand over 'bedtime story' duties to Egg while I collapse 

downstairs in front of 'Location Location' with a glass of red wine and try and ignore the screams as Dumps and Eggs fight over who gets to turn the next page.

But for now I must dash.  My giggling toddler is whipping my set of razor sharp keys at my head as I try and type this.  I am seriously in danger of losing an eye. 

"Little Dumpie Scissorhands"

Dumpie has discovered the manifold joys of scissors....again.  We went through this once before as you may recall, and after a brief flirtation with cutting up various bills (fine by me) and other rather important documents, he outdid himself with the cutting in half of two very expensive Apple Mac power cords, before moving on to other forms of "D.D.B." (Domestic Destructive Behaviour). Or so we thought.

The other morning we were woken at 9am (the monsters had been up since 7...?) by Dumpie standing at our bedside, scissors held excitedly aloft, and gleefully declaring, "Anything!" when asked what he had cut up.  ("Anything" these days is a favourite expression of his and is mistakenly used in place of "Everything"...oh joy oh bliss.)

Currently, one of his favourite past times  is to cut out the toes on socks - preferably while he's wearing them.  If his chubby little toes weren't peeking so adorably out of his customised footwear, I swear I'd throttle him.  I have no choice but to add them to the growing pile of mangled but otherwise perfectly new collection in the upstairs bin.  (He intercepted a freshly laundered pile of clothes on the weekend, and as a result Egg's sock drawer is looking pretty sparse these days.)

This morning I shrieked in bed (mental note to self:  I think I may be turning into one of those frazzled, 'scary mothers' who scream more than not on a typical day) when Dumpie deposited a mangled plastic object of some sort on my ear.  He has lately taken to bestowing upon us, 'noctural visitations' a few times a week due to the 'big monsters' who have apparently recently taken up residence in his room. 

Personally, methinks the hot duvet-clad thighs of Mama are too delectable for his freezing little feet.   Unlike Egg the perspiring little midget, Dumpie has obviously inherited my poor circulation - and upon waking he scurries upstairs to the far superior "Mama-Dada Bed" for some pre-dawn nuzzling and snuggling.  As the husband refuses to let him in on HIS side of the bed, that means it's me who gets chubby toddler feet rammed into my thighs or worse - my derriere.  (That'll teach me to sleep in the nude.)

Whatever the case, Dumps obviously saw fit to bring his scissors along last night.   As I grasped at the object trying to gain entry into my ear canal with cries of "What's this?!   I can't see?!"  the glaring light was switched on by the husband, long enough to ascertain that the object in question was MY (newly) mangled credit card.  URGHHHH.  

It's All Coming Apart...

It is with great dismay that I acknowledge the ongoing physical deterioration of our home.  On the weekend the lovely tap in our en suite sink broke off in one messy, rusty chunk.  This now means that all face washing and tooth-brushing has to be conducted one flight down in the family bathroom.  Although a larger space, it is nonetheless littered with waterlogged plastic bath toys, suspicious dark brown smudges, and the odd festering nappy in the bin, which all detract from what would otherwise be a pleasant if mundane experience.

Moreover, downstairs by the front door Dumpie has obviously spent far too long waiting (im)patiently for a scooter ride on many an occasion, and has thus had the opportunity to begin the laborious process of removing the white wallpaper and plaster from the wall.  He has made great inroads and now huge bits of white crumbly material litter the doormat and make the wall look ghastly.  With any luck, by Christmas he'll have burrowed a proper hole right through to the place next door - which conveniently belongs to the buildings Freeholders.  

I could go on, but it's merely going to upset me....(the biro scribbles on the pristine white painted window frames which will absolutely not come off...the sunken bits of carpet in the monsters bedroom which will likely never give up their musty smelling stains on account of the bucketloads of water which have been ferried from the bathroom with great regularity...the orange-juice-stained pull cords for the kitchen blinds which Dumpie insists on submerging in his breakfast juice each morning...the gaping holes visible on our bamboo fence enclosure outside on the terrace, where Egg decided to break off sticks in order to see 'what was on the other side'...the small but noticeable dents in the various landings in our home which bear scars from having had my heavy 5 lb weights lobbed down at me from a pissy toddler one too many times...ah, I could go on, but why bother?)

I might as well accept that our family is not built for grace, elegance or refinement.  No, three boys ensure that I spend approximately 80% of each waking day trying to keep utter chaos, filth and disorder at bay.  (I include the 'big boy' here too, for his domestic habits don't seem to have progressed much since the teenage years...)

We are "The Housewreckers" and as such are capable of reducing a home's core value by at least 40% within the first  year, with little or no effort.  The only time I feel a sense of well-being in my surroundings is when the husband is out for the night and the monsters are tucked up in bed.

Then, I turn into some sort of demented Martha Stewart.  I happily scrub, wipe and mop until surfaces are fragrant and gleaming.  At which point, with a bit of strategic mood lighting, I can swan around to my heart's content, imagining I live in a lovely CLEAN home and am not the downtrodden washerwoman that I am sometimes mistaken for (for whatever else would compel my three fella's to heap pile upon pile of dirty and not-so-dirty clothes into laundry baskets, and thousands of cups, bowls and utensils into the sink...ensuring my hands most closely resemble those of a pensioner??)

I wish I didn't care.  I wish I could just be a slob and adhere to the old, "If you can't beat 'em...join 'em" motto.

If only I weren't hopelessly terrified by rodents, I might just relax a bit and give in to the haphazard domestic rhythm of this household.   Really, it's just the thought of a giant brown rat scampering across the kitchen floor which keeps me elbow-deep in soap suds and cleaning products.

Pathetic really...

"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.

"Run Mama Run"

In an effort to amuse myself (and also, i confess, to get killer thighs for after Christmas when I hope to be languishing on a beach, writing a bestseller and composing a penultimate album, clad only in a tiny black bikini most of the time....) I have taken up 'running'.

Okay, so I've only done it four times so far.  But I've done it!  And so I only 'run' for twenty minutes at a go, so it's not really hardcore....but still.  And okay, fine, so perhaps my lumbering along is more akin to a 'jog' than a 'run' but i'm still moving, my feet are (kind of) rhythmically pounding the ground and I'm always on the verge of a heart attack so...doesn't that count?

The husband was terribly amused the first morning I came down, before 8 o'clock (that in itself a small miracle), dressed in black Adidas shorts, a tight white vest and looking like he'd never, ever seen me...dare i say 'sporty'?

He guffawed, (hurt my feelings), expressed incredulity, then watched with amazement as I let myself out into the cold morning, ipod in hand.  

Eggie and Dumps could care less, though Egg has expressed his desire to come and run with me, whilst Dumpie accusingly tells me i'm 'stinky' when I come back in and try and grab him in a bear hug.  He accepts that I need to 'Ekkercise' but can't help himself from jumping onto my stomach when I try and do crunches (sigh).

I do wonder how long this current phase shall last.  When the mornings get increasingly cold and dark I doubt I'll be able to show the same strength of will to hurl myself out onto the miserable streets with the same level of enthusiasm.  Saying that, if it means I can keep up my current level of cheese and wine consumption without bulging out of my low waisted hipster jeans...well...it just might prove incentive enough.

Truth is, I'm chasing that exercise 'high'...that adreneline...that free drug your body dispenses to your brain to make you feel good.  I need to 'feel good' these days.  Dumpie is going through the 'terrible two's' at the moment and seriously depleting my natural stores of Seratonin.

I march the streets with a manically screaming child, drawing all sorts of looks and accusatory frowns.  Not only can I not handle my child, but I'm ruining the quiet peacefulness of the street with my devil child who is using noise pollution to disturb all those serene Starbucks-swilling 'Mum's' and 'Mums to be'....

Moreover Dumps now insists that he get to ride his little scooter when we drop off and collect Egg from school.  This means simply, that a formerly five minute journey now takes up to twenty minutes depending on how many tantrums and refusals to move we have to endure as a certain little man asserts his independence and acts according to his toddler-ish whims.

He's also inherited his Auntie Kenz's lungs, and I was told by another parent the other day that he could hear us coming from four streets away. 

Charming.  I love raising boys.

A Spit and a Polish...

Today our new cleaner started. This is our third one this year. We are not entirely sure why we seem to be going through domestic help at such a ridiculous rate, but both the husband and I have our opinions.

HE thinks that it's because we should pay them MORE money than their other clients, thus keeping them sweet. (And no, he isn't referring to bonuses for holidays or special occasions, he means that we should just voluntarily up their rates for no apparent reason. I try to imagine the conversation...)

ME: "Thanks so much _____. Great job today. Listen I'm giving you a bit extra because I want you to know how pleased I am with your job performance."

HER: "What? I no understand..."

ME: "No, my husband and I thought that you deserve a little more than you're getting, so just keep the change...ok?"

HER: "Me no understand."

ME: "Umm...."

The husband doesn't understand that to up someone's hourly rate when a friend was kind enough to put in a good word for you, could result in your friend being made to look cheap - or worse - the cleaner demanding that her other clients match your generous offer. It's a lose/lose situation any way you look at it - especially as I am convinced that money has precious little to do with the fact that cleaners ain't too keen on cleaning for us.

I have a few theories myself. Maybe it's because we have three bathrooms to clean? I mean, how horrid is that? Or perhaps it's because the husband insists on maintaining his Mount Everest pile of clean clothes balanced precariously in the corner, making our room resemble a student dormitory at times. Or perhaps we've got two little boys, too many flights of stairs, and are simply...unlikeable...? We're getting a complex about it now...

At any rate, we didn't start this new relationship very well this morning with the sweet, lovely woman who rang our doorbell at 8:30am. (They're all lovely in the beginning...before I get the inevitable text saying, "Sorry I no come no more"...)

Dumpie squeezed a whole tube of bright blue kiddie toothpaste on the upstairs landing, just as she walked in. And then I proceeded to call her the wrong bloody name all morning until she was leaving and gently corrected me (calling me by my right name of course), "Natasha, my name is ____ not _____...though that is nice name too!"

Urghh....

I give her seven weeks. The husband predicts three or less. Especially since he helpfully pointed out that me speaking in pidgin English to her might be construed as patronising...

I give up...

""The Super Giant Mega Kitchen Bubble bath Fiasco"

So my blogging hiatus has come to an end. Sorry to those who were following me and now likely think I've dropped off the end of the earth....and sorry also to those who found my protracted silence a blessed relief from self-obsessed ranting.

I am back. Back in black. Well kind of.  A visit to my newest (and most amazing) hairstylist in the universe has rendered my long, tired tresses a thing of the past.  He restored my sun-lightened multi-coloured hair back into exotic dark hues and now I find that I have a compulsive urge to replace my cut-off denim levi's with an Audrey Hepburn-esque little black dress as a result.  Ah, the benefits of a good old head massage and two hours of pure attentiveness from a young, talented man...

Him:  (massaging my head under warm soapy jets) "Is this too hard?  Does it feel okay?"

Me:    (quietly moaning...then moaning some more) "Oh Noooo...this feels Amaaaaaazing"

Him:  (embarrassed chuckle) "Oh. Good. Ummm...Ok.  Time to cool you down now.  No really." (He then proceeds to douse my head in coldish water, bringing me out of my near-hypnotic state.  Shamefully, I am drooling.  I make mental note to self to send husband to study massage therapy on threat of divorce when next in India) 

Anyway, I digress.  We're back in the London now for the start of yet another scholastic year. Egg's new teacher is a pretty blond just out of teacher's college who I mistakenly took for someones Au Pair.  Oops.  But she looks sweet and I'm sure what she lacks in authority she will more than make up for in massive crushes (and I'm talking about the Dad's here, not the children).

I have to say though, despite having STILL not fully unpacked our eight suitcases (do you blame me?!) yesterday alone was enough to prompt me back onto my blog for more protracted and public moaning.

While on ichat with my father, Dumpie wandered in and rubbed a lovely smelling but very sticky lotion on me.  I wondered vaguely what it was as I distractedly sniffed at it, but it wasn't until I tried to rub it into my arm that I noticed it was producing a heavy, thick white foam.

That's when I noticed that Dumpie's legs and arms were covered in a thick glaze, as if he'd been dipped into a giant cauldron of melted icing sugar in preparation for becoming a human donut. 

I ran shrieking into the kitchen to discover that the new bottle of 'All-In-One Super Foamy Shampoo and Body Wash' I'd bought earlier in the day, had been squeezed out onto the entire kitchen floor.  (Given that the bottle proudly states that a mere pea sized dollop of the stuff can lather and foam up an entire child's body, imagine what a whole bottle can do at once...no really)

After half an hour of mopping it became clear that I was doing nothing but turning the room into a giant slippery bubble bath - not to mention a complete safety hazard.  The more water I put on, the more foam bubbled up, until it became so ridiculous that I just flopped, sodden, onto the floor and tried to stop myself from having a tantrum.  Dumpie and Egg watched from the door, greatly amused, clearly finding the whole situation hilarious.  

(I took the several deep breath's that the anti-abuse commercial on telly suggests when you're about to have a melt-down...took some more...then decided that my doomed kitchen was in all likelihood a preferable environment to the alternative domecile in Her Majesty's Prison if indeed I acted on any crazy impulses involving throttling and the like...)

This morning was no better.  After a long morning of errands and countless stops in various stores along our street, I made one last pit stop before going home.  In the library, I looked down to discover that not only was Dumpie happily munching his way through the second of two gourmet cupcakes I had bought the boys for a treat, but realised he was SHOE-LESS.

Horrified, I asked Dumpie where his shoes were.

"Me throw dere" he said munching happily on a sugary violet flower...

"Where Dumpie?!  Where did you throw your shoes?!" I begged, exhausted and at my wit's end.

"Out dere" he said, motioning vaguely at the door, leaving me to retrace my steps up and down the street for the next half hour.

Fortunately, I did manage to recover the shoes.  (They were found in two different stores, and turned over by bemused shop assistants.)

Unfortunately, I have yet to recover my former good mood.  As it stands, it is M.I.A....  

 

The Little Potty That Was Never Loved

Once again I've been absent from the blogosphere for a few weeks now.  Rest assured, Egg, Dumpie and myself are still alive and kicking - only wreaking havoc on the other side of the pond.

My father is still recovering from open heart surgery...slowly but surely.  The monsters are helping out by 'redecorating' his pristine, (formerly) off-white condo, into something with a more colourful (quite literally), bohemian palette. 

It is quite commonplace to walk by the creme fabric sofa in the morning and do a double-take whilst clocking the childlike graffiti swirled in oranges, purples and browns on the back.  It is also quite normal to be sitting and watching television, shift uncomfortably and reach down between the cushions to extract say a giant dried husk of a mango pit, or perhaps a stale and forgotten cheese twirl.

The bright red potty lugged 8 hours over the Atlantic (because it was Dumpie's 'favourite' - notice I say WAS) sits utterly abandoned in one of the toilets - as clean as the day we arrived.  I have now resigned myself to the fact that there is every probability that I shall be wiping my youngest son's bottom even as he sits his A-Levels.  

"Excuse me Sir may I please be excused to use the facilities?"

(A curt nod from the teacher as my large, lumbering son exits the classroom, speed dials me at home and issues his plaintive plea)

"Mum, sorry I've filled my pants again would you mind popping over for a sec and sorting me out?  It kind of stinks...."

"Sure son.  Do you need me to bring the wet wipes or are you cool doing that part yourself?"

"Come on Mum - I'm pretty stressed with exams - could you just do it?"

"Ok son be there in a jiffy!  Just try not to sit on it ok sweetheart?  See you in a minute"

"Hello Bumblebee..."

Dumpie is currently lying in the sun-drenched dining room floor beside me, carrying on an imaginary conversation with a bumblebee.  From what I can gather, they are discussing whether or not to get Mama to open the giant bag of 'Nannies' Grandma (aka 'Mum-Mum') got him yesterday.

"  'Ello Bumblebee...me have Nannies.  You like Nannies?  Me get Mama open Nannies?  You 'ungry?"  

(For some strange reason my son has gone all Cockney lately, much to the amusement of our relatives here in Canada...)

There is the now familiar scent of bodily waste drifting up from the nappie region and it is with much shame and despair that I must confess that 'Potty training' has gone the way of the Routemaster buses in London....it's bloody obsolete.

Yep.  You heard me correctly.  Whether due to the intense last few weeks with Grandpa in intensive care or the fact that Dumpie has clearly inherited his father and my ultra-hardcore-insanely-stubborn genes...it's hard to say.  Whatever the case, he appears to have such an aversion to the potty at present that you would think we were trying to lead him to the electric chair like a solemn Tom Hanks in "The Green Mile" - not a cheaply manufactured chunk of useless red plastic.  (sigh)

After several weeks of rain (ah, an 'English summer' in Toronto, how quaint) the weather now seems to be righting itself as evidenced this morning when I was awoken by (who else?) Dumpie right in my face demanding breakfast of his mother who was slowly being roasted alive by the intense sun pouring through the all-glass walls of the condo here high on the 36th floor. (If I had been wearing any sort of lotion I would have likely basted myself and started to smell quite fragrant I imagine.)

So here I sit, contemplating another day, missing my eldest who is in Mississauga (a suburb of Toronto) with his paternal grandparents, about to embark on a swimming lesson.  I'm sipping a disgusting, 'too milky' coffee (I'll have to make sure that my Will clearly outlines the necessity of being buried with my Italian stovetop espresso maker and sufficient 'Illy' to last me well into eternity...) and now have to play a game of hide-and-weep with Dumps...wherein I follow my nose to locate the source of the now putridly pungent diarrhoea-tinged air.  

To ensure I don't fail in my task, there is the faint chant of 'Diarrhoea...diarrhoea...diarrhoea' coming from the other side of the condo.  New favourite word methinks?  Oh great... 

Hospital Daze...

So for the past week or so I've been in the hospital all day everyday... 

My father is slowly recovering from open heart surgery and it's been a very stressful and tense time.  All the grandparents have been roped into 'doing time' with the monsters, but I have to confess that my mom really drew the short straw when landed with Dumps.

During just one phone call Dumpie had dropped a key down the heating grate, unraveled an entire packet of dental floss and fed it to Grandma's puppy (who licked the minty string clean), and was adamantly declaring that he was 'ablolupely NOT going to have a bath', despite being grubby enough to warrant an industrial strength hose down.

Meanwhile in Mississauga, little Egg was having swimming lessons, going for nightly bike rides with 'Granny-Gramps' and eating barbeque fish on a nightly basis.  Becoming increasingly concerned with the passing of time, I wasn't the least bit surprised to see the addition of a wristwatch on Eggie's wrist when he was returned to me.  It glows in the dark so now I can receive bi-minute updates on what time it is.  Hurrah.

Bedtimes appear to have gone out the window and now a nightly 'musical beds' takes place beginning around 8pm and lasting sometimes till long after midnight (sigh).  Last night the monsters outlasted all of us, still running around and giggling like spastic gremlins after we gave up the fight and finally crashed.

It was no surprise then to find myself eyeball to eyeball with Dumpie this morning in the early hours of pre-dawn.

"Wakey-wakey Mama!" he declared triumphantly as he planted a kiss on my lips.  

And so another day begins...