2015, and all that (already)

Hello!  And happy 2015! So, where were we?  Ah, yes, it was New Year’s Eve.  And then it was New Year’s Day, and I decided to abandon my Caring For The Sick duties for an hour or so, and headed out with our driver (I know!). About an hour into my  Peace and Quiet – about which I was taking my sweet time - his phone rang. He barked some Bahasa waffle into it, and hung up.  My husband, I mused aloud, wondering where I am?  No, he responded - it was the villa manager.  They need the car urgently because one of the kids had an accident and needs to go to hospital. 

Well, that was not at all stressful.  For the next 25 minutes one part of my brain was hoping that the statistics, stacked against me as owner of 60% of the children, would fail, while the other part berated me for, by default, wishing ill on my nephew and niece.  Common sense kicked in tho', when it dawned on me that of course it was the Girl who’d fallen or tripped or bashed herself in the eye with a bat. Without wishing to put her in a box, if she was put in a box she’d fall out of it and break a tooth.   As it turned out, I was right – she’d tripped and split her chin, and so I got straight back in the car and off we crawled through the deeply annoying Bali traffic to hospital.

We left the next day, the sick and the weak and the injured, and climbed aboard an Air Asia flight over the Java Sea to Singapore.  The plane shook and bounced around like a tin can, and I swear, every single person on board held their respective breaths for the entire journey (except for my children who demanded apple juice, and fought over the ipad, and all announced bursting bladders at precisely the same time as the seat-belt sign was turned on, etc).  And then – phew – we were safe and sound, and HOME.   (Say what you will about sterile Singapore, but when you’ve spent what feels like 80% of every day in another Asian country sitting in unmoving traffic on roads made from spit and sawdust,  it is somewhat joyous to get back here.) Santa had been and there was much initial excitement (which in retrospect was more likely a bed-time procrastination technique), however since then, and in line with a recent Onion-esque headline, 100% of children are totally ignoring their Christmas presents.  (Actually, what it should read is: “100% of children are more inclined to bicker and fight than deign to glance at their Christmas presents”). 

And now the Man has buggered off to London for TWO WEEKS (in his defence he’s not just going to London for a jolly - he’s going skiing in France for a weekend too) and the kids are still on The School Holidays Which Will Never End, and the Baby has decided that as she’s suddenly all lanky and skinny, it’s time she joined in the intra-sibling violence.  

However.  It is not all hideousness.  Some light relief in the form of the Boy, when, at the weekend, atop a tall building and looking down I remarked that I had the willies, he responded:  “Don’t be silly Mum, you have the vaginas.”  And then there’s always parenting mortification to distract one from Holiday Hell.  In the lift today, a nice (I thought) lady asked me what floor I wanted.  7 please.  She pressed 6.  “What apartment are you in?”;  I told her.  “Oh, you’re directly above me.  You’re children are very... lively....”  “Ah, yes”  I smiled, and rolled my eyes and grimaced a bit, in a conspiratorial, aren’t-they-shocking sort of way.  “Maybe you should get some furniture.  It sounds as if you don’t have any.”  “Really?” “Yes, it sounds very... empty. And energetic.”  “Oh.  We have furniture.  Generally they’re jumping on it. Or pushing each other off it.”  She didn’t laugh.  Thankfully, the World’s Longest Lift Ride came to an end, and she stepped out, shaking her head, and saying “So very lively.  More furniture I think.”  

And then when I got in to the apartment I discovered that a bird had gotten into the Boy’s room and shat all over it, and I found self wishing that we didn’t have any furniture, or at the very least none in that particular room.  Also, somewhat bizarrely, the Boy REFUSED to accept that it was bird-shit, insisting instead that it was melted chocolate. Because, you know, it’s so much more likely that melted chocolate dropped from the ceiling and splattered all over his room, than that a poor stupid bird managed to get through the half-inch window-space, crap everywhere, and then squeeze out again.  My parenting day ended a couple of hours ago with a game of backgammon with the Boy, and further humiliation. (He's six. He learnt to play YESTERDAY. He clearly cheated.)  

Ah, it’s good to be home.