So you took the quiz and are apparently ready for parenthood?

No matter how prepared we feel for parenthood, you can never truly be prepared for the biggest yet most rewarding white knuckle ride of your life.  Still it doesn't mean you can't practice anyway.....preferably before you do the baby dance.....

* Get your significant other to set your alarm to go off at 8 random intervals no more than three hours apart throughout the evening/night for four months minimum.

* At each waking be set a challenge such as attempting to open a Calpol bottle or opening a safety gate.

* Get your favourate makeup, break it all.

* Your favourate dvds? CD's? Chew them.

* Wee On your toilet seat

* and on your bathroom floor

* Get your significant other to poo in the bath

* Every hour, mangle your nipples

* Find your favourate top, puke on it.

* Empty lego all over the floor, turn off the lights and walk across the room, without swearing.

* Lovingly make a nutritious tasty meal from scratch.....then throw it on the floor.

* Cut a small hole in a large box, hang the box from the ceiling by string, twist it until the string is tight....let go.  Now whilst it's spinning try and get a spoon of food into that small hole.

* Empty several beakers of  water / juice / milk over your carpet.

* Remove the peel from a banana, place banana on carpet....jump on it.  Lots.

* Scatter cheerios throughout your house like birdseed.

* Fill your coat pockets with random crap, then put it in the washing machine.

* Give your phone and keys to a neighbour and ask them to hide them somewhere in your house, ten minutes before you have to be somewhere.

* Get your purse, empty it.  Get used to how it looks empty.

* Before you go anywhere, pack 90% of your belongings in a bag and take it with you.  Everywhere.

* Jam a plastic banana or plastic sausage up your hoover hose.

* Spend a fortune decorating your bedroom to utter perfection.  Now move all your stuff into another room and sleep there instead.

* Buy one of those battery operated rabbits (no, not that kind.  Sorry!) that randomly somersault and walk away from you.  Now try and put a nappy on it.

* Fill a wet pillowcase until it's approximately 8lbs in weight, play some black metal music loudly.  Walk up and down the room, carrying aforementioned pillowcase, whilst eating your dinner...with one hand.

* Repeat everything you say thrice.

* Buy shares in Gin.  Valium too.

Still with us?  Blimey.  Best get shagging then....... still, maybe have a ganders at this first.

Catching up

Woo-hoooooooooo! The kids are back at school! Let's sleep!!!! erm.. I mean party, yes, let's party.  Things One & Two have been back to school a week now, calm has replaced the chaos once more.  It's not that I don't miss the little buggers, obviously I do, it's my ever fraying nerves that are rejoicing.  Thing One is terminally bored and would rather roll around the floor bemoaning the fact like some demented dog than to actually play something whilst Thing Two has had just about enough of her two brothers and although she's a gem at playing and entertaining herself her brain was woefully bored and starving for academic challenges.  She was positively thrilled at the prospect of returning to school, I think she's broken, where did we do wrong?  That just leaves Jekyll and Hyde, The Toddler.  On his own he is possibly the most charming  and agreeable excuse for a small person ever yet throw Things One & Two into the mix and he becomes terribly possessed, screams in demonic tongues and beholds siblingocide as his dearest hobby as he venomously rips apart any shreds of remaining sanity we may possess becoming abhorrently contrary.  In other words, he turns into a right git.  Had he been someone elses child I wold have labelled the little fellow a complete bar-steward. Happy days.

Chasing the tail of Thing One's birthday was Thing Two's birthday, a mere two weeks later.  Obviously a complete lapse of sanity in our planning there.  Ooops.  However we had the rare feeling of satisfaction knowing that we'd fulfilled her birthday list of presents  Win.  Usually The Relatives all descend upon our modest abode for a buffet and cake, yet due to The Spawn getting older and somewhat bigger the thought was rather stifling not to mention the fact The Kitten is to be kept in the main receiving room so the constant opening of doors may have developed into a rather interesting bitch fight should she have escaped into The Cats dwelling.  So we had the genius idea of celebrating out of the home, with a trip to Pizza Hut for Thing One and The Chinese Buffet for Thing Two.  Infinitely more expensive, but bloody worth it.  Hassle free  Bliss.

After avoiding referrals like the plague for over a decade I've finally been given one to a quack, with the rather amusing name Dr Seine, pronounced Sane.  Yes, really.  I shit you not.

The Husband, who adamantly never has an opinion nor shoes anything but utter contempt for my constantly changing hair colours has spent the last few months protesting his sheer loathing for my current colour, an uncharacteristically normal dark blonde.  It's boring apparently.  Naturally, I have spent possibly the longest time in the past few years not changing it,  possibly just to irritate him, we all need a hobby after all.  Alas even I've become fed up and have predictably bought red dye today  Sorry Thing Two.  No doubt i'll have blood on my hands (& ears) and the bathroom will appear to resemble the site of a massacre by the time i'm through.  I'm frightfully slap dash with my ritualistic hair torture.

Must dash, I have a space rocket to fix and cat shit to scoop, why oh why do they wait until they have lovely fresh litter only to immediately christen it with a large shit then just to ensure the aroma penetrates the entire vicinity they refuse to evacuate the tray until they've kicked and scratched the litter round  or a miniature eternity?  Bloody cat.  Did I mention that she gobbled the cat grass we grew her in mere seconds then pulled up the roots...dumping them avec soil on Thing One's bed? There is a reason we nickname her twatcat.

Moo Moo Moo

Rewind to around four months ago and you may recall The Teapot Chronicles . I'm sure you will be immensely relieved to discover that the teapot is still here and even more marvellous is the news that so is It's lid, here that is, unlike my sanity but that is somewhat of a no brainer (a bit like The Husband). I'm still rather plagued with the psychosis of ensuring each evening all pieces are present and accounted for and safely in their carry case where they should be. The carry case that is cruelly partially transparent which only serves to make it all the easier to torment me when pieces go awry. Unfortunately there have been several spoons missing in action, presumed dead, yet the 'there is no spoon'mantra has so far prevented me from clawing at the paintwork and ripping up the carpet to find them. If I try incredibly hard and self medicate with copious amounts of chocolate I can temporarily suspend all belief that four spoons existed let alone any notions that they may be indeed necessary.Temporarily.

Recently Thing Two rediscovered the rather charming farm she received from My Mother several Christmas' ago. It's the rather sweet Rosebud Farm from The Early Learning Centre which I try so very hard to adore yet I can't help but be aggravated  by the shocking lack of pigs, I mean really....a farm without pigs? Not to mention the absurd presence of ducklings yet no duck and a cockeral and no hens! How bloody negligent of them! Then there is the horse that looks suspiciously like a giraffe, Yes, on a farm. Irregardless of It's misdemeanors it is awfully cute and yet I can count on one hand the amount of times Thing Two has bothered with It. She simply doesn't 'do' that kind of play as the ignored dolls house will attest to. She appears utterly appalled by the idea of having to set things up.

Until recently that is, when The Husband gutted tidied her pit room. Suddenly she sparked an interest in it and sneaked the buggery thing downstairs much to The Toddlers sheer delight. You see, The Toddler is a real Toddler who actually plays with such things and remarkably enjoys them too. He is deliriously attached to the two cows and goes on these barmy quaint psychotic rampages with them shouting 'Moo Moo Moo' incessantly.

Yet Houston, we have a problem. The farm consists of pieces. Multiple pieces. Multiple necessary pieces.  Vital pieces that are intrinsic to our very existence and should one go AWOL it would render the play farm experience as we know it ruined for ever more.  Just thinking about this is tumulting me into a twitchy state of panic.

Every night at tidy up time I have to launch a full scale animal search and rescue mission enlisting Thing One and Thing Two who usually find many of the animals in The Toddlers oven, roast beef anyone? I try to remain ambivalent for to reveal the true extent of my frantic anxiety only makes the animals hide harder. Gits.

It doesn't stop there though. Seriously. It gets worse. The level to which my scantily clad sanity stoops knows no bounds. The pieces have to be arranged. Yes. What's worse is that I actually have a small perverse pleasure in doing this, It's immensely satisfying for the soul. Everytime The Toddler or Thing Two desecrate and pillage one of my lovingly arranged scenes a voice inside of me cries. A lot. Because quite frankly It's not bloody fair and really rather mean of them!

I tried changing tactics and tucked all the pieces up safe and sound for the night inside the farm, but it just wasn't the same. It didn't feel right. So I waited until their bath was ready and secretly rearranged them.

The nightly tidy up is about to commence.

The farm and teaset are both strewn across the room.

Be still my beating heart.

Oh shit.

I need gin. Quickly.