“Dad, can I watch tv?” Miss6 asked me this morning. I was in my usual position, slouching against the coffee machine bench.
“Of course,” I said, as I took the first glorious sip of my first glorious coffee of the day. I’d just simultaneously decided this would be the day I cut back on coffee while reaching for another pod, proving once again I don’t function without caffeine.
The school holidays have been fun, although we’re struggling to manage the kids’ electronics so they don’t spend the whole time staring at screens, picking up bad habits. But I also think it’s important to enjoy a coffee in some sort of peace.
You can see my problem.
As Miss6 ran off, Miss9 arrived. I’d asked her to change out of her pj’s and, after what I’m sure was much deliberation, she’d sauntered out of her bedroom in exactly the wrong sort of get up.
“You know it’s winter, right?” I asked her.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, “and I am cold. But nothing goes with this,” she added, indicating her top.
I think it was a top. It looked more like a skirt she’d yanked up to her chest. With long, white socks and black shoes. There was a lot of skin between the where the top stopped and the socks started.
I give up where women’s fashion is concerned. More-so where it involves Miss9. To give you an idea of what I’m dealing with here, despite spending most of her free time coordinating her wardrobe she goes and wears heels with swimmers to the pool. Every time. In fact she’s so sure of the fashion sense of this, when her little sisters were watching a show on telly which showed a house with stuff outside it where they have to guess who lives there (lily pond + nunchucks = Miss Piggy, that sort of thing) and when they got to the house with heels out front Miss9’s guess was, “Someone who lives near the beach!”
The next decade is giving every indication of being very, very trying.
“Bruce, did you say the girls could watch tv?” Tracey called out, bringing me back to the present. I pressed the button on my coffee machine. “I’ve just said no to electronics to the older two.”
“Well, that’s not fair,” I called back.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Guys!” I bellowed from the coffee machine, because until the second shot was in my stomach movement was out of the question. “You can all play on electronics for an hour!”
“Bruce!” snapped Tracey. I could tell she was walking towards me, which told me I had maybe read the situation wrong.
“Well, I already said they could,” I called out, hoping to cut her off with logic. “How am I supposed to take that back?”
Suddenly she was in the room.
“You grow some nuggets and you say noooo-” she almost threw a full stop into the sentence, “-oooo way are you wearing that.”
And I don’t think it was because it didn’t suit the weather. I love it when Tracey goes all adult on the kids. Gives me hope the next ten years might not be as bad as I imagine.
“Okay, Mummy,” said Miss9, racing off for another costume change, the back of her undies flashing us from under the ‘top’ as she went.
“Want a coffee?” I asked my wife, and not waiting for an answer I took out her favourite pod. She was looking a little frazzled, which was nice. Mainly because it meant she’d forgotten why she’d come into the kitchen.
“Where is she learning to dress like that?” said Tracey, still staring after Miss9.
I wasn’t stupid enough to answer my wife – the second coffee had started to work – but I’m pretty sure one of the shows which could form part of the answer is called Mia & Me.
It just came to mind because I could hear Miss4 and Miss6 watching it in the family room.
“Raising a family on little more than laughs”
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