The Mess Hall

It never ceases to amaze me how much mess three children can amass in the space of mere hours. I was home alone with the kids tonight, so Anth could have a night out with the lay-dees. This, of course, is the excuse for all three children to go hog wild, pull out all their toys, wee or poo their pants (is that what babies do?), and generally throw most of their dinner all over the floor (babies to that as well??) or table (don't the older kids know how to eat yet?)

Dinner was one piece of excitement after another. Callum, the baby, decided that crawling around the kitchen whilst I grilled chops and sausages, and tried to toss a salad, was an opportunity too good to miss. He got into the plates drawer, and tried to pull them out. He got into the pantry, and pulled paper towels out and spread them all over the floor. He even got out our old pin board, and tried to eat the old pins. *Sigh*. The hardest thing to take was when he decided he'd help me with the grilling. You've probably never seen a grown man leap from one side of the kitchen to the other when he realised how close the boy was to burnies. Glad my ankle is feeling slightly better.

Because a repeat of Futurama was on TV, Ethan wanted to dash off and watch that. Because I like to have everyone eat together at the table, he scoffed down as fast as he could to get the approval to run off. Great, food scraps everywhere. Aidan, who is a bit off colour at the moment, decided he'd just wander off to his room and leave is mess for the dog. The dog did come in and hoover up all the meat scraps she could find, so that was one less thing I had to do. On top of this, Anth had decided to wash all the bed sheets today, so in trying to get the kids to bed I had to refit all the beds with new linen. This meant negotiating the many and varied small objects which are at present adorning every bedroom. There's nothing like small metal matchbox cars under your heel with every turn.

Ciao for Now, Mess Duty Angry Dad.