7:00am
Wake to the silhouettes of little people stood in our bedroom door. No, we are not being abducted by aliens - it is our younger children.
“Can we go downstairs? The little rabbit is up.”
This is the damn alarm clock we bought to keep them in bed on school days UNTIL 7am. It has two pictures on the front, which are lit internally on a timer. At 7am the little rabbit changes from being tucked up in bed to being wide awake, bouncing round the room. Damn him.
“Yes”.
It’s the last we see of them; based on past experience they will watch cartoons on television, make their own cereals, spill milk and cereal all over the kitchen, use half a roll of kitchen paper cleaning it up hilariously badly, try to brush their own hair, and tie their own hair into hilariously bad ponytails.
9:00am
I wake for the second time, nudged by better half who comments “you better go and see what they’ve done downstairs”.
I stumble through the house in boxers and a t-shirt, hair looking like I was dragged through a prickly bush backwards during the night. I reach the kitchen to find mercifully few disasters, but do find all the cereal bowls and unfinished drinks littering the lounge.
I consider berating them for not sitting at the table for breakfast, but save my breath. At least half of it’s not on the kitchen floor.
“I’m guessing nobody has let the chickens out?”
“No”
“Thanks a lot.”
I stumble off to the shower, and set about de-cavemaning my hair, and waking up some more. King of Shaves gel helps scrape the beginnings of a neanderthal beard from my chin, with the knowledge that my inlaws are coming for lunch.
Must. Look. Presentable.
9:45am.
Heading towards an hour since I got up. I’ve already loaded the dishwasher, switched it on, swept the lounge for junk, tidied the kitchen tops, and made myself a coffee - which I haven’t had a sip of yet. The chickens are out, the cats are fed, and the kids have mysteriously dressed themselves.
Little Miss 5 appears in the kitchen doorway.
“Go playpark on skateboard Dad?”
“In a minute”
She runs into the lounge “Guys! Guys! We going playpark in minute - get shoes and coats!”
I roll my eyes, drop what I am doing, and set of in search of my coat. In fairness, I had conned one of them into eating her dinner last night with the promise of skating in the park.
It takes us ten minutes to get through the front door. This is one of the great mysteries of the universe; how small children can forget the most obvious of things, or make idiotically impossible requests. Quite how they remember which socks, gloves, or boots are their own is a mystery to me too.
10am
We finally reach the park - 100 yards from our front door, and I slump down on the bench - it’s only 10am, and I’m knackered already.
You want to know the funniest bit? I was going to write the whole day up, but have just realised it would stretch on for pages.
Today has been crazy.
It’s approaching 9pm, the children are in bed, and I’m too damn tired to do anything of my own that I might have been looking forward to doing earlier in the evening.
It all starts again in the morning, when the little rabbit wakes up.