Back to school blues

So it finally happened. Kitteney Ava bared her teeth. And claws. She had a head revolver: a tantrum of such force, it took two of us to hold her down and pull her leggings off. I don’t normally recommend gripping small girls and ripping off their clothes, but she’d been given every opportunity to do it herself and Tom and I had had enough.

Eat your chicken, we said. Then lollipop.

No she said. Kitteny can’t sleep without lollipop but won’t eat chicken.

Eat your chicken, we reasoned. Then lollipop after.

She refused, sniveling. We ignored.

Family meal was eaten while she sobbled on a beanbag.

Okay Ava, I said, clearing away the plates. Last chance. Chicken, then pop. Or, bed and milk. You choose.

I don’t like the choices.

Tough luck I said. It’s either or.

She wailed a bit.

Okay bed. I tried to bundle her, but my gammy elbow, a weeping souvenir from my night on the tiles in Ibiza, infected below the bone and being treated with not one but two different types of broad spectrum antibiotics, wasn’t up to the challenge. Tom came to my rescue. She screamed like something out of the exorcist, head spinning mildly.

It’s bed and milk now, Ava, I said in my dictator voice.

She began to kick and hiss.

Once divested, not brutally, exactly, but firmly and with four hands, there was no way she was staying put. I held the door firmly while she tested her lungs. She quieted, regaining her breath in wet, feeble gasps.

Ready for cuddle and story?

She wasn’t.

This went on some time.

Eventually, her sobbing turning breathless, she hiccuped: Kitten eat chicken now.

There’s my girl, I said, giving her a hug. I carried downstairs where she ate her chicken and rice, and then had a lollipop sat on her own.

I told her next time she would have company if she ate with everyone else. Hopefully, this has sunk in. She getting too big for three flights of stairs.

Jonah, all the while, was acting the golden child. It’s always the way, when t’other is playing up.

Clean your teeth I said and you can read for a bit. This precipitates a roar or two from him, especially when I suggested her could earn his computer time with reading time.

Out of patience, I leave bedtime to Tom, and head to the pub, ostensibly to blog (the WiFi still hasn’t been sorted. Bloody BT) but I forget my charger and end up talking to Sam about pugs. Tom was sulking in bed when I return.

To be fair, Ava’d had a tough day. A tough week. I returned from Ibiza to her a little below par, and within days she’d developed blisters on her tongue, toes and fingers. The cold Tom had suspected was in fact hand, foot and mouth disease – something I’d only ever heard of in cattle, but is common enough in the capital’s nurseries, apparently. It looked nasty. I hoped she was beyond contagion. I could do without any more blisters on my feet, ta.

The week I’d planned to spend with the kids doing nice playgroundy, crafty, fruit picky things was buoyed up by double dosing on Calpol and ibuprofen. We managed, just about, to make the best of but it wasn’t much fun for anyone.

It’s back to school this week, and the pair of them are wrung out on lazy parenting, ice cream, and late nights. It’s gonna be murder unpicking the damage, but it’s hard to stick to your guns when the weather’s nice and all you want after work is a shandy and some bloody peace and quiet. Especially when you’re mopping up inches of dust from your surfaces day in day out where the builders have been moving walls around.

I know. Middle class problems, but problems nonetheless.

Returning to work this morning, Jonah was unhappy about the proposed day in Kool Krew, even when I suggested he would pocket some of the savings we would make from a day without a childminder, but still, despite multiple forewarnings and a sugar mouse in his packed lunch box, getting him out of the door was no mean feat, and hurding him up the dual carriageway on his scooter while I took Ava, lunches, work stuff and my swimming gear on my Princess Pashley was a feat of everyday heroism. But on arrival at the local leisure centre at 8.30 on the dot, and already late for my commute, I was informed by the ever polite, warm and efficient staff of Mile End Leisure Centre (I do hope my sarcasm isn’t too overt here) that it wasn’t on.

Holidays are over, they said.

They’re bloody not. I said. They don’t go back till Wednesday.

Well they are here.

Apparently so.

I ring Tom and scream blue murder at him. I asked him to book it, more than once (I’d had my fill of dealing with the leisure centre’s phone multiple choice options system) but he hadn’t. I decided it was all his fault and told him so in no uncertain terms.

Two of the reps came to my rescue but it took some persuasion. Kate was still dealing with Saturday’s hangover when I called her, and she didn’t know what day it was but my tone of voice told her it was urgent. It’s Linda’s birthday, and following a very pleasant afternoon round hers on Sunday where I experimented with mixing anti bs and red wine (an interesting experience, not unlike doing poppers but for hours on end), when all the kids, Linda’s Alfie, Kate’s Lola and my two, ended up leaving her place at a slovenly 9.00pm dressed up as bamfires (vampires Ava) No bamfires. Okay Ava, bamfires.

I guess you could say we were asking for it.

Neither of them, Linda, or Kate, bit when I stuck my finger in the wind, playdate wise, for the last Monday of the holidays, despite the wine, and general conviviality of the lazy Sunday of roast, James Bond, and kids playing nicely and swapping germs.  They each had back to school chores to complete, they said, no can do.

But in the event, hearing my distress, outside the leisure centre, late and short of rope, unable to locate Helorgie, the sexy babysitters, or Kev the manny at nearly 9 am in the morning, bit too early for them, my fellow reprobates came through in the end.Good girls, those reps, when push comes to shove, but it’s hard enough dealing with your own kids, let alone someone else’s. Especially on a birthday hangover Monday.

Linda and Kate took a child each and the kids were alright, but it was a trying day all round.

I got to work half hour late. Not a great look on your first day back, but my Creative Director, without kids of his own, and my age, tried hard not to be judgmental. When he asked me how my holiday was, I told him it was great. Pointless saying anything else.