Wednesday 30 November 2011

Stanker

Tonight, I am, once again, a STANK. I am stanky for opting for evening routines and bedtimes instead of unlimited Cbeebies, and Stanky for banning another repeat of Justin's House, and very very stanky for insisting that hands are more or less wiped with a flannel to at least attempt to remove some of the glitter paint used at Rainbows. And I am a stanker stanky stinkstank for wanting Mog to be able to enter the sitting room instead of being parked blocking the front door. But I am also apparently a lovely precious Mummy and MY Mummy and I need endless kisses.

Turbulent times. I'm not looking forwards to the teen years.

Happily, Mog finds this entertaining. Which is good, because she'd otherwise get lost in the battle. I am after all the biggest stank of all for taking "GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE" as a cue to go and get Mog sorted and into bed. How unreasonable of me.

It's been one of those afternoons. And I can't help thinking that actually, I probably am a bit of a stank, even if not necessarily a stanky stinkstank. Because most of the stankiness could have been avoided. tLP was expecting to come home to a sausage sandwich. I didn't make (or buy) bread, so she had sausage and potato instead. Change bad. Sweet potato even badder. If I'd moved a little faster on the way back from Rainbows, she wouldn't have run into the backs of my legs, and I wouldn't have shouted. If I hadn't been grumping about having just been run over, I would have been able to pre-warn tLP that her next move was to park her chair and hop into the bathroom. She needs warning of imminent lack of Cbeebies. Change, as I may have mentioned, bad.

And if I'd spent the day differently there would have been nicer things waiting for her. If I'd spent the hour she was at Rainbows differently, then at least evening drugs would have been drawn up, evening feeds set up properly, and the long distance Take your jumper off/YOU ARE A STANK cycle could have been swapped for a friendlier, more cooperative getting ready for bed closeness. But instead I mooched around and made "waiting in for deliveries" into an activity in itself rather than doing anything vaguely useful whilst waiting. And Mog had a music and bubbles day - pleasant for her, but perhaps a waste of a nice awake without attention-grabbing sibling day?

And now the girls are in bed, and the stankiness of the day was relieved somewhat by the snuggliness of the evening, and huge and vast sighs of relief all round at jobs done, routines over, and the gentle hum and whirr which passes for silence in this house. And I'm sitting here stewing over my own inner stankiness, frustrated that one of the deliveries didn't turn up, and annoyed that I think I've recycled one of the smaller deliveries without actually removing the delivered item from the packaging first. Is that stanky or just stupidity?

And I'm thinking that four years ago today we buried Goldy today. And we've tried to commemorate her life in various ways. Friends bought us a tree - it died. We bought some cats which linked to other parts of Goldy's life - and one of them died, and one of them is now not stanky but decidedly stumpy. And there wasn't even time or thought tonight to eat a Goldy Pizza. And I know she wouldn't care - if she wasn't eating it herself then there wasn't much point to it. My purple-headed pizza eater, we have for the past few years enjoyed troughing doughy slabs in her memory. I think perhaps forgetting her funeral pizza might count towards further stanky behaviour. It's also just possible that deciding to move her out of our house and into the supported living placement which ultimately caused her death is pretty stanking too.

So there you have it. A few of the reasons why I am in fact a Stanky stinkstank. Mog could, I am sure, add to the list. I'm reasonably certain she think's it's very stanky of me to object to her midnight singing. I think tLP is right. I am a stanky stinkstank, a stanker and a stank.

Which is precisely why I am so thankful for this

Stankfully yours,
Tia

Oh dear...

Sunday 27 November 2011

Hello

I had a biggish post planned here. Several, actually.

An update on Mog, who has had big seizures, big sleepiness, big misery and now much giggling and happiness.

An update on the Little Princess, who is alternately finding suggestions for ways to avoid future surgery (planned for January), finding things to look forwards to about having had the op, and attempting to convince me we need four baby kittens. We don't.

An update on Grolly, who is now combining her new role of lap cat with a revival of her role of intrepid leaf-hunter. This, in Autumn, is causing damp wet tired cat to flop on my chest at every available opportunity, having previously carpeted the kitchen floor with mouldy horse chestnut leaves. These leaves are particularly attractive at five o'clock in the morning, and each one is supposed to be welcomed with much praise and adulation. It isn't.

Mildly humorous descriptions of all too brief excursions into the real world had been planned, including a promise to avoid any shop larger than Budgens for the next five weeks, and a reasonably irate rant about the placement of Christmas products combined with "new and improved" queuing systems which have now made it virtually impossible for the girls to get to the tills in most shops in town. But it was more infuriating than entertaining, and the vitriol bored me. So we'll skip that one too.

Smug "aha look at me, I've finished my Christmas shopping (or most of it) before Advent Sunday" post has been delayed due to the non-availability of certain items, the omission of certain persons from the list of people to shop for, and the sudden determination of one small child that only a particular piece of electronic gadgetry will do. It's probably just as well - it would only have been smugly irritating.

A post on the wonders of salted-pretzel-crusted chocolate chip cookie bars was stymied by the discovery that they were in fact fairly disgusting and not worth the effort of blogging about. Salted Fudge Brownies needed to be made in order to redress the balance.

There was comedy value last weekend; a friend with her own two somewhat wonky girls came to visit. And we did for a longer-than-it-should-have-been moment each have one small child screeching in bed and one less small child screaming uncontrollably across our laps. Visiting each other is such fun. Sounds like hell from the outside; from the inside, well, at least we had company. Misery shared and all that. Children irritating, and all that too.

And this weekend I'd planned something mildly edifying to do with our church's 50th Birthday. A bit of gentle grumping about a mother who would volunteer the Guides to help serve coffee then promptly disappear on holiday for a week leaving yours truly. But no need to grump really as it turns out we were only a very minor cog in the whole coffee-and-cake wheel. A comment on the Bishop's Birthday sermon, but I haven't heard it yet as I was busy putting out tablecloths and pinning balloons onto screens. A trip down memory lane; not that I've been at church for the whole fifty years, but that felt a little boring too.

I'll settle for saying, Christchurch is fifty. Young enough for the founders to be a part of the celebrations. In a building old enough to count as a "proper" Anglican church (having originally been Tithe Barn for the medieval abbey dissolved by Henry 8th). Following a God who is old enough to see the several hundred years between the building of the barn and the commissioning of the church in the blink of an eye, and young enough to relate to all of us, however old we are.
Happy Birthday, and here's to the next fifty.

And there you have a potted summary of what would I am sure have been some truly insightful posts. Alternatively, there you have just sufficient to confirm the fact a summary was the most sensible option.

I'm off to look at kittens later this week. Don't tell the Little Princess.
Tia

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