“I’m going to the shops on the way home,” I told my wife on the phone. “I’ve got to buy more coffee pods. Do you need anything?”
Tracey quickly rattled off a few items so quickly I wondered if she had a list by the phone ready on the off chance I called.
She ended with, “Oh, and you need to buy yourself a new toothbrush.”
“Why?”
“Your youngest daughter got hold of it.”
“Again?” Miss1 has a habit of cleaning the toilet with toothbrushes so we have a habit of locking the bathroom and keeping them out of her reach.
“No, she didn’t stick it in the bowl,” Tracey assured me. “She just let another member of the family us it.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that,” I said. You get over that sort of thing being a parent in a house with so many kids. “I’ll just give it a wash.”
“Umm…..your call, but I think you really better get a new one,” my wife reiterated, just as the wheels started to turn in my head.
While I’m happy to use a fork or brush or cup or whatever, my kids are very proprietorial. My pre-coffee senses are assaulted with banshee like screams if I try serve Miss3 her breakfast cereal in anything but a pink bowl, and similarly it must be yellow for Miss6 or she’ll guarantee your day gets off to a bad start. It must be something about cohabiting with so many siblings – you want something to be yours.
So the point my brain was slowly making was, with Miss1 being the youngest, who did she give my toothbrush to who would have used it?
There was only one answer, but I still found myself asking, “Who did she give it to?
“The dog,” said Tracey. “I found her squatting down and brushing Jazz’s teeth. Jazz was being very patient. I think she was enjoying the attention.”
So I added toothbrush to my shopping list. But it was only after I hung up the phone a worrying question occurred to me – what was Tracey’s plan if I hadn’t called?
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’
