“The kids slept well,” Tracey said to me when she emerged from the bedroom this morning. It was a statement, not a question.
I glared at her through aching, unfocused eyes and said, “You’re shitting me, right?”
This is roll reversal – usually it’s me making the ignorant, insensitive comment first thing in the morning.
“I was up four times in six hours,” I shot at her. Not that I’ve any real grounds for feeling indignant. You see, today is Tracey’s birthday and all she wanted was a night off from getting up to her children.
“From midnight to midnight, you’re doing the kids,” she told me yesterday. “And by the time I wake up I want them fed, dressed and bags packed.”
“No worries,” I said, because it’s her birthday and what’s one night as a thank you to my wonderful wife for all she does. Well I was wrong. ‘Big worries’ would have been a more appropriate response. ‘Lots of worries’ would also have sufficed. No wonder our Miss0 naps so well during the day – she’s awake all bloody night!
I knew I was wickedly tired before Tracey even skipped out of bed. I’d been up with all the kids for an hour already, a good deal of which I’d spent looking for my Kindle. I read a few pages of a book every morning while I sip my coffee to help ease myself into the morning. The thing is, Kindle or no Kindle, there wasn’t time for easing into the day while I was trying to light a bomb under the kids’ bums.
“Josh! Out of bed, mate. Molly, stop playing with your doll and pour a bowl of cereal. Grace? Grace! Where are yo…what are you doing? The telly isn’t even on. Why are you staring at it? Come on, put your uniform on. Josh! Last warning. Get up and start breakfast or there’ll be no DS this weekend. Yes, or computer or Wii. Thank you. Sophie, where is your nappy? Is that poo? Oh no.”
I eventually found the damn Kindle thing, which I’d put down to help Miss2 and Miss5 mop up the milk from their attempts at breakfast, in the fridge.
Another sign I was in for a bad day was when I accused Tracey of getting up herself to attend to our baby in the early hours of this morning. I might not be good at this but I wanted to be able to say I came through with her ‘present’.
“I didn’t get up,” she assured me, grinning.
“But Emily had a bottle filled with just water when I got up this morning. You must have.”
“Well, it wasn’t me,” reasserted Tracey. “No way. I clocked off at midnight.”
“Oh,” I said, my mind thinking this over. “In that case it looks like I forgot to add the formula to her bottle last night.” What else had I forgotten? “I changed the baby’s nappy too. I better check I put one back on.” I’m extremely pleased to say I had.
So HAPPY BIRTHDAY my darling! Another year older but you still look the same to me as the day we first kissed.
Or maybe that’s just the sleep in my eyes. I’ll check again tomorrow after a good night’s sleep 😉 xx
When not typing away over here and checking his stats every two minutes
Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his ‘BIG FAMILY little income’ Facebook Page.
’raising a family on little more than laughs’
Well, What a master effort young Bruce, You tried hard to do the best for your darling wife on her birthday. Did you fail? Only she can call that. I have grave concerns that you may filled the child’s milk bottle with a clear odourless and colourless liquid which was specifically marked “Photographic imaging fluid, Do not drink” This would have been stacked neatly on the upper shelf of the fastidiously organised and well labelled workshop of Devereaux Photographic Enterprises (offices in New York, Paris and Gympie). Should the recipient of the dubious clear coloured copying liquid start to resemble her mother in any way shape or attitude in the near future, I suggest you seek assistance from a sleep walking clinic and lock the studio door after hours. As for the carpet, the brown mottled look has always worked well in the smallest of RSL clubs located in some dubious dusty backwater where it is difficult to know whether rissoles and chips have been scubbed from it over the last 20 years or it is actually meant to look this way. Well done son. Hope you had an amazing and relaxing birthday Tracey. Lots of love, Cop and co