Visitors

It is half past nine at night. I am sitting writing this in my underwear.

This is not because of any further developments on yesterday’s inspirational smutty film thoughts, but because we have got Ritalin Boy staying and I have just given him a shower before he went to bed, because he was horribly sticky and smelled peculiar, and he insisted on holding the shower head himself.

I love Ritalin Boy very much, but having spent today treading on Lego and mopping up spilt apple juice I am now more than ready for bed.

In fact, this is quite likely to be a very short and slightly tipsy diary entry, because when I had finished reading the bedtime story and tiptoed downstairs praying for the silence to last, I discovered that Mark had collapsed in a chair with the wine open and ready, and I don’t think I have often found a more welcome sight in my kitchen, and probably won’t until he gets round to doing the tiling.

It is not that he is naughty – I mean Ritalin Boy, not Mark, obviously – although actually on reflection both of them are inclined in that direction whenever a decent opportunity presents itself. I quite like this really, there is entertainment value to be had from a small child who has just worked out who is most likely to be upset by the surprise use of a rude word. The wearisome thing is that he never, ever, stops unless he is asleep.

He sleeps like a fallen log, thank goodness, but up until that point he has bounced on the beds with his shoes on, climbed excitingly over the bannisters and hung in space over the stairwell, charged about the house and tumbled on and off the sofas, experimented with the black smeary end of the poker and the new carpet, and shouted: “Granny! I need you!” about six hundred times, and glared at me and said, through gritted teeth: “I not a hoogliun!”

By the time he had been in the house for about fifteen minutes Mark remembered that he had got to go and get some urgent new tyres on the car and buzzed off to Lancaster, leaving me and the dog in charge of babysitting. The dog is not at all enthusiastic about children, and staked out what remained of his territory under my desk in the office, hoping against all reasonable hope for a peaceful day. Of course the dog’s life is already going through something of a dark and gloomy phase. If ever you have seen Jurassic Park, and remember the scary dinosaurs that looked a bit like oversized malicious chickens, and hunted the terrified children around the kitchen you will have a good idea of what it is like to be the poor dog at the moment, because of course we are still entertaining the two visiting cats in the house as well.

They were in the middle of stealing his breakfast this morning whilst he looked sadly on, and when Mark tried to remove them they were brave enough to leap on him, with all their claws out and spitting. They went outside rather suddenly for a while after that, so that the dog could eat his breakfast in peace and Mark could put some Savlon on. As guests go they are not my favourites, and when Ritalin Boy said to me accusingly this morning: “Why have you borrowed my cats?” I couldn’t think of a single sensible answer.

Ritalin Boy has actually been staying with his Other Grandma, who must have the temperament of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana combined, because she was neither white nor frantic when she dropped him off this morning, which is how I usually am after half an hour, but quite cheerful although undeniably looking forward to a quiet day. His parents are too busy doing other important things to be responsible for nurturing him at the moment, so we are having a go between us and his Other Grandma, to see if we can manage any better.

I can say now that I am quite sure that I can’t. I have discovered that I am far too old for small children. A bit like gobstoppers, you grow out of wanting them. I am very impressed with Number One Daughter and Number One Son-In-Law, who manage to cherish and nurture their offspring and still hold down full time jobs and not ever give way under the strain and get drunk at lunchtime, and still seem to manage to cook and clean and do the garden. I have looked after him for a solitary day and achieved nothing whatsoever, we had to have cheese and crackers for tea once he was in bed because I had a catering failure, and now I am utterly exhausted.

My child-rearing days, thank goodness, are over.