Jour De Crap

Today I just had one of those days. Not desperately horrible, just you know .. meh.

We are into week two thousand of the school holidays and because of our London Sydney move last year, my kids have only done one full term of school since June/July. They’ve been on holidays more than they’ve been at school this past six months and they’re as bored with it as I am.

So the older kids are spending the week doing the holiday club Holly’s school offers. They love it and get to do all the things they don’t at home. Like painting, playing with glitter and crafty mess.

The little kids are doing swimming lessons. Jude can’t swim and Charlie only just swims so given our pool is almost ready and the level of anxiety I have about them drowning, I’ve enrolled them in a fortnight of daily intensive swim lessons.

Problem is that Jude absolutely hates it. Yesterday was day one and within ten minutes the staff had already asked me to leave the pool area so my hysterical flapping octopus of a child would stop clawing at the poor swim instructors shoulders.

Because he’s the fourth child and I’m running low on sympathy for my kids that put on performances like this (Jude is by far my most defiant and difficult child), I left the pool area and went and stood out on the street. Where I could still hear him screaming from.

So this morning as soon as he woke up, Jude said to me “I not going swimming Mummy. Don’t like it, I stay here”. So I bribed him with everything I could think of to promise me he wouldn’t scream in the pool and in a fit of poor judgement I told him he could even sleep in my bed tonight if he didn’t scream. Sleeping in our bed seems to be his ultimate challenge and we spend every night trying to keep him in his. It was a safe bet I guess.

After I’d reversed the car out of the garage with the boot still open, ensuring to leave a large dent in the back – all in a sleep deprived state because of my insomniac child who kept me up all night, we arrived back at the pool this morning and Jude took one look at it and started screaming like a lamb being led to slaughter.

As he clung to my leg and the teacher was trying to pry him off me, I looked over at Charlie who was standing by the side of the pool right where all the Mums sit on a long bench along the edge.

Without warning, he widened his legs and did this weird ballet plie and wee’d through his swimming costume onto the ground, splashing everyone’s shoes who was sitting in front of him.

It was one of those moments when you look at your child and don’t recognise them. Or don’t want to if I’m honest.

Oh my God WHAT ARE YOU DOING CHARLIE?

So I won’t go into the next few details but basically they had to evacuate everyone from the pool area and disinfect it. I couldn’t have made more of an entrance if I tried.

Luckily, Jude screaming had set off the other two kids in the class so there was a lovely chorus of crying from the toddler group that distracted everyone on the other side of the pool so it was only about twenty of the fifty people who had to relocate all their belongings.

.. and it’s only day 2 of 10. There is plenty time for things to deteriorate massively from this point really.

Moving along we met my sister for lunch. Aside from Charlie announcing to us both a little louder than I’d have liked “Mum that fart really hurt my bum” it was disaster free. I explained to him he cannot fart in restaurants and he continued to play some nail polish manicure game on my iPhone where you choose colours and paint virtual nails (don’t ask, I don’t know).

I figured that was the end of it until I was returning some shoes later in the day and in the middle of Country Road Charlie asked me at the top of his voice “Mumma why can’t I fart in restaurants? What do I do if I need to?”. And then again in the lift, and again at the tills in Coles.

What the hell is it with boys and farts?

Last stop of the day was picking the big kids up. When I arrived I found Luca covered in primer paint that can only be removed from skin with turps. And a burn on his arm from an iron. I didn’t even bother asking what a hot iron was doing at a kids holiday camp. Or why they would use permanent paint with kids.

So tomorrow morning will be spent at the hairdresser, getting the white paint that I couldn’t remove cut out of Luca’s hair … and then going to more swimming lessons.

I can hardly wait.