It's taken a week to get over it

Last weekend seems like lifetimes ago now, but as I'm in catch-up mode I thought I'd blog about it anyway. You see, normally our weekends are filled with sleeping in, doing housey jobs and tasks, meeting up with friends and family...but not last weekend. Last weekend was about 3 children, a dog and us.

On Friday evening at 6pm the 3 children, about a million bags and Stella the Rottweiler arrived at our house. They've been before but only for an overnighter, not this time. From Friday evening to Sunday evening, we were going to be taking care of them all. Let me introduce the characters. First up there's the 2 girls, aged 6 and 4. Then there's the baby, aged 1. Stella's been a player on the blog before when we dog-sat for a week and I had visions of Wavey roaming the streets, Brando style-ee shouting Steeeeelllllaaaa, she's huge. And a bit on the porky side. And a bit on the limp-y side this time too which wasn't too funny at all.

Friday evening, 6pm. Arrival, madness, jumping around, screaming screeching, baby crying at the thought of his parents abandoning him...me meeting one of Wavey's sons for the first time...t'was all a bit bonkers to be sure. Rather cheekily, I had made plans to attend a gig with Cat so knew that this madness would be short lived, but it was all a bit fraught up unto me leaving, and then the girls tried to guilt me cos I was going out. Arrrrggghhh, they'd only been there about 10 minutes and already the guilt was coming out! I escaped to the gig, and by the time I came home they were all in bed and Wavey was flat out on the sofa nursing a glass of port, clearly the only booze that could be found in the house cos we usually only sup the port at Christmas time. Bedtime.

Saturday, 6.30am. Yes, you read that right. The girls decided at half 6...in the AM...that it was time to get up. OMG. On the weekends we generally wake up around 10, enjoy breakfast in bed, head to theatre or wherever we're going and basically enjoy us time and leisure time. Clearly this wasn't going to be the case. I'd go into intense detail but I fear I may bore you too much. To cut what felt like a massively long day short, let me tell you about how relentless it was. Utterly relentless. We fed them. Then we got them dressed. Then we entertained them. Then it was time for the next feeding sesh. Repeat the entertainment. Next feeding sesh. Repeat entertainment. Bathtime. Bedtime. 9.30 that evening saw Wavey and I struggling to keep our eyes open and declaring that we might as well go to bed as we were seemingly incapable of conversation, and staring at the tv in the corner with a blank expression wasn't doing much either.

Turns out this bedtime so early was a good plan as baby decided at 6am on Sunday (6AM!!!) that he was going to scream the house down. Oh. My. Goodness. I didn't even know 6am existed, never mind on a Sunday morning. He wouldn't stop screaming no matter how much Wavey tried to comfort him so we committed the cardinal sin and brought him into our bed, mainly because we didn't want to wake the girls, and secondly, it truly doesn't take you that long to realise with this parenting business that a quiet life is truly all you're after. He still wasn't shushing so I thought perhaps a bottle would do the trick. Staggering downstairs I whacked my leg on the side of the safety gate (oh the irony) and did all the bottle stuff with my eyes closed as I truly wasn't conscious properly. He gulped his bottle down and then started on the ninja moves in order for him, a body so small, to take over the ENTIRE double bed, and steal all the duvet. Teetering on the edges with the barest amount of available duvet, we all managed to go back to sleep for about another hour or so. I woke up with his foot in my armpit and his head resting on my thighs. He woke up, grunted (ugh!) stuck his bum up in the air and went back to sleep! And so day 2 started.

We felt like we had some respite on the Sunday as the girls went and played upstairs in their cardboard castle (knew those giant wardrobe boxes would come in handy for something) and the baby was playing with his toys. And we knew the parents were coming at 2.30pm, yay! There was another meal to contend with. All offers were refused, until upon careful consideration it was decided that a plain omelette was better than having to go into the garden to eat mud and worms (please note, Dizz will NOT be messed with, especially by 6 year olds!) . Sadly the parentals were a little late in arriving and we had a further meal to arrange. Turning down Dizz's fantastic crispy chicken the girls declared they wanted a McDonalds. Oh ho no. We do not eat such filth. And therefore no-one in my house will eat such filth either. But why don't you eat McDonalds? Cos it's dirty...in hindsight that may not have been the best way to describe it. Everyone that I know, realises that I mean yuck cack along the lines of celery by this statement, but someone who is 6 will no doubt have reported back that I believe McDonalds is dirty. In fairness, I'm not really ashamed of this cos it's true, and also reiterate the statement of earlier, I won't be messed with. That wasn't on the menu and never would be. Nuff said really.

And so they finally went home. With their million bags, and evil attacking bruise giving safety gates, and car seats that must be quite tasty to a 1 year old - chomp! Wavey and I sat down and talked about it a lot. We'd never really made any plans to have kids, and I'm always honest with everyone when I say that I'm not interested in going down the parenting route, and the weekend had only made me believe more that I am not the parenting kind. Don't get me wrong, I love kids, and am always happy to play and spend time with them, cos let's face it, they have excellent toys, but the best kind are definitely the ones you can give back. And if I'm entirely honest (please don't shoot me) if I had to make a choice, I'd much rather have a shiny new pair of boots over a baby anyday.