The More Things Change

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I swear, when I reposted at blog story from January 2015 yesterday, It’s Been Nice Knowing You, I was not planning on that being a set up for this post.

The only thing on my mind as I hit publish was, ‘I’m glad those days are over’. As in, I was glad I could plan my nap even as I waved Tracey off on an errand, knowing she’d be none the wiser when she got back.

“Bruce,” Tracey called from the lounge room shortly after she’d come home. “What’s happened in here?”

How would I know? I hadn’t been in there since she left the house three hours earlier. I tried to remember what the girls said they were doing before I slipped into bed with a documentary on Sherlock Holmes’ contribution to modern police work playing on my iPhone to talk me to sleep.”

“The kids were just making a fairy garden,” I said, walking into the room. “It was so cute. They’d made little tables and a bed.” I looked around. “It’s not too bad,” I told Tracey.

There were pencils left out and chairs from the dinning room and cloths and a basket and odd shoes on the lounge and a stroller and a doona from one of the bedrooms on the floor and xBox controllers and lots of paper and a spoon, which is always an odd discovery considering they aren’t allowed to eat in there, but nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly, nothing to drag me away from the coffee machine for.

I told Tracey as much.

big family little income mess-1 copy
I take responsibility for the cold coffee.

“I don’t mean in here,” said Tracey, turning her back on the scene. “I mean in there.”

I slowly spun to look where she was pointing – the younger girls’ room.

“What the hell is that?” I stammered.

It looked like bum tickets had been used to practice a ticker tape parade for when our Olympians arrive home in a couple of weeks. Later found out it wasn’t toilet paper, but their Mum’s paper towels she uses when changing her stoma bag.

“That’s what we were making the fairy bed soft with,” said Miss6, who just happened by at this moment.

“But it’s a big mess,” Tracey said to her. “You know you’re not allowed to rip paper up like that, so why did you do it?”

“Daddy said we could,” said Miss6, throwing me in the deep end.

Dobber.

“I did not,” I said, even to my own ear sounding childish and petulant.

“Yes, you did,” said Miss6, matching my tone (where do they learn it?). “You said we could do whatever the hell we wanted so long as we didn’t annoy you.”

Double dobber!

“Good nap?” Tracey asked me.

I still can’t get away with anything around here. I think I should just accept it.

But also, yes.

“It was awesome,” I assured her as I went to round up the rest of the kids to clean their mess.

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The worst of it was to the right of this, but Tracey wouldn’t let me show you that. She has standards.

Raising a family on little more than laughs

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1 Comment

  • ? my mum stopped buying tissues when I was little as they all got used to make little dolls beds nice and cosy! She didn’t see the funny side.

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