Do you ever have a day when you just shouldn’t have got out of bed?  We had one yesterday – no, that’s not me and my doppelganger good-cop mum sidekick but the entire family.  From the moment the boys barrelled into the study/playroom at 5.50am the day was doomed.  I was faffing already, getting lost in reading other blogs (a brave, beautifully written post from Lisey Bendy’s blog to be precise check it out here www.shittytittiebangbang.com) and trying and failing to galvanize myself into writing action.  So having achieved nothing by the time they came in put me in a grump which, as it turned out, matched the one Sam had woken up with and as it happened Andrew.  Humph.  The sort of day where we need a bigger house in order for us all to be grumpy in our own little corner.  Except life of course isn’t like that and the day had to be faced.

Edward decided to well and truly face it when he leapt off the chest of drawers onto Sam’s bed, kneecapping his big brother with a salad server (previously pilfered from the kitchen) and breaking a precious new Lego Chima model in the process.  Oh the pitiful sobbing from the victim, the defensive yelling and flailing of arms and legs as the offender was put into time-out (never one to down without a fight is Edward), the tears and snot and dribble from both.

This set the tone – before breakfast.  For the rest of the day I felt like my witty aside of ‘ha, ha, UN peacekeepers have nothing on me!’ should have been stapled on a large board to my forehead.  Navigating a day like that is walking the parenting minefield.  I didn’t know which innocent instruction would set off the next homegrown greanade (it turned out to be ‘please bring your water bottle through’, who’d have known?).  I staggered into The Source holding up two fingers.  Luckily being such a good customer I jump the queue now so energy levels were promptly pumped up.  Just writing that makes me wonder if it is my good custom that pushes me up the orders or my sons’ custom of rolling about on the floor and demanding water from the fun little tap on the counter that encourages the baristas to feel the need for speed. Hmm.

I did read recently that the results of a major study into bullying have shown that children mollycoddled by their parents are 10% more likely to be bullied than those allowed to find their own boundaries and learn conflict resolution by themselves.  Glad to see my parenting technique of ‘leave them to it, they have to learn the hard way’ gets the thumbs up from the professionals!  There are simply only so many times one can say ‘stop it’ in one day, we just happen to reach that threshold surprisingly early sometimes.  For the article click here http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/kid-gloves/story-e6frg8h6-1226636971204.

Today everything is different!  I was left in peace until almost 7am, quite a record.  Andrew was impressed that I had turned stripping beds into something fun when I gave the boys two minutes to do it themselves before I did it for them.  He obviously hasn’t realised I am training them to be decent houseguests in order to secure sleepovers!!

There was great excitement this morning when our Easter parcel from my Mum arrived – only two months late!  Sam’s question ‘Where has it been until now?’ met with William’s reply ‘There are people who have to taste every single thing in every single parcel before we can have them.’  Now there’s a reality TV show in the making.

With her permission I would like to share a short story about my friend ‘Agatha’s’ son’s reply to a question posed by his teacher which is still causing her to seriously consider changing her name to Agatha and moving school possibly even city pronto.

Teacher ‘ Let’s think about Balmoral Beach.  It is a natural landscape but now has lots of man-made features.  Can everyone think of a man-made feature at Balmoral and share it with the class.

Girl 1: The path along the front.

Boy 1: The rotunda.

Girl 2: The benches.

‘Agatha’s’ son: Balmoral Cellars…

I’m laughing even as I type.  She should be proud I say, I wish it had been my son’s answer!

Today is Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Day http://foodrevolutionday.com/.  It has had no publicity here that I have seen but I’m always one to try and impose some culinary experience on the boys so tonight we are making pizzas with some lovely friends.  That is four mums and ten children.  I imagine I’ll be calling Jamie all the names under the sun this evening before taking to the drink!  In the meantime I had better go and make the dough…

This week I’ve been

Reading ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King – a present to celebrate my first commission from my gorgeous boys, loving it (perhaps I should have read it earlier?)

Reading ‘An Omelette and a Glass of Wine’ by Elizabeth David – I’ve just discover ED, such poetic descriptions of food.  No wonder she was such a revolutionary.

Reading ‘Mrs Queen Takes the Train’ by William Kuhn.  Gently enjoyable, taking a while to get going (I’ll avoid a British Rail joke here!) though.

Cooking for my lovely preggy friend Rebecca.  Curry, soup, pasta sauce.  I still remember fondly the gorgeous parsnip soup my lovely sister-in-law Lucy filled my freezer up with before William’s arrival.

Celebrating having lost 1.5 kilos, better stay off the wine (you were right Mum!).

Boys will be boys…