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Woke up. Fed Astrid. Came downstairs. Cleared Rob's pyjamas and underwear off the dining table (?! I guess strange things happen at 6am?) and supervised children clearing up oil, water and squash mess on the dining room floor, involving my tiny coloured cocktail glasses and small IKEA bowls. Threw a tantrum when children were spectacularly unhelpful. This helped a lot, so I threw another one, which helped more. Smashed the tiny IKEA bowls.
When I got into the kitchen I found that the bottle of olive oil had been emptied - oil and water experiment with squash as food colouring? I'll never find out, because I threw that tantrum, as mentioned. I washed it out of Linnea's hair. I also cleaned up THREE upset tummies, none mine, and scrubbed out the loo. And the bath.
I had a shower and got dressed and left the children to be babysat while I went to the doctor. The double appointment I'd asked for hadn't been booked, so we only tackled three things on my list of six, and I have to go again on Wednesday morning, WITH three children in tow, to tackle the next three. But I also brought the books to the library and found that we have a TWENTY SIX POUND FINE and then I went to the post office and posted sunhats to Dublin and patchwork dungarees to Crewe.
Then I came home and had a good whinge at my friend who was babysitting. And she made me tea and I ate a hot cross bun, and then she left, and then she called my name through the closed door as soon as I'd shut it behind her, and I let her back in, and she said there were MEN WITH GUNS.
I don't like guns, so I went out to look at them, which is basically my sensible grown-up head tackling my fears head on, unless it's my ridiculous stroppy teenager head refusing to be confined by stupid uncool grown-up common sense, and they were police, which was better than it might have been.
So there were several police in BLACK ARMOUR with BIG BLACK GUNS and BLACK HELMETS looking mindbogglingly sinister, standing on our side of the street and aiming guns - BIG GUNS - at one of the houses opposite. And at both ends of the street was a little line of special police tape and a big line of hi-vis police coats and a stack of police cars with blinkenlights and so on. One of the hi-vis vests waved me back into the house and I went in sharpish.
We did a bit of headless chickening in a calm collected grownup way, and got the kids downstairs to the dining room, which was nice for me because I could see them all, and also nice and safe in case of any in cases, because it has no street-facing windows. We also closed all the windows and curtains, because of possible broken glass.
And of course Rob's phone wasn't working so I couldn't call him to tell him what was happening. I told Twitter, which was helpful. And I called the police non-emergency number to see when it was safe to leave (the second time I called, after an hour, they said I could look out and see because people were being allowed onto the street again). I also called neighbours who might have been going to collect a child from nursery but as it happened they were all out together, so the parents and children were all on the same side of the cordon and there were no panicking toddlers anywhere, so that was good.
So we ate cake and drank tea until we were let out again.
In the middle of all these things I was trying to catch up on the weekend's housework - the weekend is another nine posts all to itself, I think - and I managed to get the dining room floor cleared, the front room floor, the lego, the duplo, the building bricks, the six EXPEDIT cubbyholes of books, the children's furniture, the kitchen floor, emptied and refilled and ran the dishwasher, mopped up the dozens of accidents after the potty-training toddler, cleared the kitchen counters and cleaned them, did about one and a half dish-drainers full of washing up by hand, sorted food waste ready for composting, threw MORE tantrums... somewhere in the middle of it Emer smacked Astrid and I, very sensibly and maturely, smacked her back. TRULY MY FINEST HOUR.
However, if nothing else, the GP is sending me for blood tests to see why I'm dizzy, has prescribed steroids for my earache and tinnitus, and will write to a gynaecologist to see if I can have a coil inserted under general anaesthetic which might put paid to my WOMANLY CYCLES once and for all. GOD I HOPE SO.
And I got potatoes washed and casserole heated up and the table cleared and ALL so we all ate A MEAL. My first meal of the day was a fabulous dinner sometime after six o'clock in the evening. I SUCK AT SELF CARE.
But I win at shouting and at convincing the children that hiding from men with guns isn't very scary at all. So I win.
When I got into the kitchen I found that the bottle of olive oil had been emptied - oil and water experiment with squash as food colouring? I'll never find out, because I threw that tantrum, as mentioned. I washed it out of Linnea's hair. I also cleaned up THREE upset tummies, none mine, and scrubbed out the loo. And the bath.
I had a shower and got dressed and left the children to be babysat while I went to the doctor. The double appointment I'd asked for hadn't been booked, so we only tackled three things on my list of six, and I have to go again on Wednesday morning, WITH three children in tow, to tackle the next three. But I also brought the books to the library and found that we have a TWENTY SIX POUND FINE and then I went to the post office and posted sunhats to Dublin and patchwork dungarees to Crewe.
Then I came home and had a good whinge at my friend who was babysitting. And she made me tea and I ate a hot cross bun, and then she left, and then she called my name through the closed door as soon as I'd shut it behind her, and I let her back in, and she said there were MEN WITH GUNS.
I don't like guns, so I went out to look at them, which is basically my sensible grown-up head tackling my fears head on, unless it's my ridiculous stroppy teenager head refusing to be confined by stupid uncool grown-up common sense, and they were police, which was better than it might have been.
So there were several police in BLACK ARMOUR with BIG BLACK GUNS and BLACK HELMETS looking mindbogglingly sinister, standing on our side of the street and aiming guns - BIG GUNS - at one of the houses opposite. And at both ends of the street was a little line of special police tape and a big line of hi-vis police coats and a stack of police cars with blinkenlights and so on. One of the hi-vis vests waved me back into the house and I went in sharpish.
We did a bit of headless chickening in a calm collected grownup way, and got the kids downstairs to the dining room, which was nice for me because I could see them all, and also nice and safe in case of any in cases, because it has no street-facing windows. We also closed all the windows and curtains, because of possible broken glass.
And of course Rob's phone wasn't working so I couldn't call him to tell him what was happening. I told Twitter, which was helpful. And I called the police non-emergency number to see when it was safe to leave (the second time I called, after an hour, they said I could look out and see because people were being allowed onto the street again). I also called neighbours who might have been going to collect a child from nursery but as it happened they were all out together, so the parents and children were all on the same side of the cordon and there were no panicking toddlers anywhere, so that was good.
So we ate cake and drank tea until we were let out again.
In the middle of all these things I was trying to catch up on the weekend's housework - the weekend is another nine posts all to itself, I think - and I managed to get the dining room floor cleared, the front room floor, the lego, the duplo, the building bricks, the six EXPEDIT cubbyholes of books, the children's furniture, the kitchen floor, emptied and refilled and ran the dishwasher, mopped up the dozens of accidents after the potty-training toddler, cleared the kitchen counters and cleaned them, did about one and a half dish-drainers full of washing up by hand, sorted food waste ready for composting, threw MORE tantrums... somewhere in the middle of it Emer smacked Astrid and I, very sensibly and maturely, smacked her back. TRULY MY FINEST HOUR.
However, if nothing else, the GP is sending me for blood tests to see why I'm dizzy, has prescribed steroids for my earache and tinnitus, and will write to a gynaecologist to see if I can have a coil inserted under general anaesthetic which might put paid to my WOMANLY CYCLES once and for all. GOD I HOPE SO.
And I got potatoes washed and casserole heated up and the table cleared and ALL so we all ate A MEAL. My first meal of the day was a fabulous dinner sometime after six o'clock in the evening. I SUCK AT SELF CARE.
But I win at shouting and at convincing the children that hiding from men with guns isn't very scary at all. So I win.