Bonjour Blog,

Comment ca va?

Moi? Je vais très bien because Printemps is coming.

ok – that’ll do on the old French and anyway, to say that I am very well is a slight lie as I was in Dublin (again) this weekend and going to bed later than 9 p.m. two nights running (with no mention of the alcohol consumed) plays havoc with my aged skin.

As I was on such a roll, I decided to drink more alcohol upon my return to Froggy Land which could be put under the heading ‘Things not to do when you get home from Dublin’ OR ‘What not to do on a Sunday evening’.

At age 42, it is not enough to congratulate myself on the self control I showed by not getting drunk drunk (this is second stage level; level one being tipsy).  It is also not enough to self congratulate as half a pint of one of those drinks got knocked (self knocked) onto my lap. I’m sure all that iron that is in Guinness (ahem) did wonders for the skin of my upper thighs and bum.  Running around the suburbs of Dublin with wet pants and trousers, a damp vest and very damp shirt in the sultry March weather could also go under ‘Things to avoid whilst in the Emerald Isle’.

This was the reason I was there:

What has been happening here, you may ask?

Lild Supermarket Dog had to have an operation.  She now feels less of a woman and shall be having counselling for the loss of her womb.

The reason that she had to have an operation was because the vet who performed the ‘Stop the dog having babies’ operation’ bodged it up.  As an aside, that vet has since killed himself. Are these things related?   The Vet-the-2nd told mon mari that Lidl would have to go to a specialist vet in all things reproductive. The husband could feel….literally feel the euro notes flying out of his wallet.  I can’t say that I caught him sharpening his knives to perform the operation himself but I know him well enough to suggest that he thought of it.

Lidl is depressed.

She is depressed as she has been made to wear a plastic cone.

This plastic cone is used as some sort of battering ram against all other species…….like us, the Humans. I feel that she is expressing some of her aggression at being mutilated in the form of ramming us with that bloody plastic cone. She is particularly good at attacking us with it through doorways as we both try to walk through at the same time. The Cone wins every time.

The Children of mine

The Prodigal has been fairly quiet – no news is good news? Definitely in this case.

The Face – has been secretly pumping iron. He must be pumping iron so hard and fast that he has caused some kind of Movement Hurricane which has emptied all of his drawers of every item of clothing onto the floor……along with wrappers and a serving bowl.

The Professor – you can only have a conversation with this child if it involves football.

The Lips – worryingly, he has been quite good recently. This can only mean that he has some grand scheme on the go which will be the downfall of the planet. In the meantime, he has found a pet – a pet toad which he has named Beans. Perhaps Beans shall be the vessel of the Lip’s plan. If I see him searching for his slingshot, then I’ll have to release Beans back to the wild of our swimming pool (and, let me tell you, that place is wilder than say, a wine and canapes evening……hosted by riotous prisoners).

Fatty – shall be 4 tomorrow.  Yes, I can hardly believe that the baby is at such an age. The beginnings of independence display itself. How can I tell?   I’ll tell you how I can tell.  All I have to do is check out the toilet and IF it is covered in poo, then I can tell you that FAtty is exerting his 4 yr old independence by wiping his own bum.

Last week, his Independent streak was doing so well that not only was there poo ALL over the toilet but it was also on the walls and a mirror. How did he manage to get it spread so far and wide?  Let me tell you:  now, after living with 6 brothers and now 5 of my own, I pride myself on being a bit of a Sherlock when it comes to piecing together what (bad) activity has taken place. As Holmes says, we just need to use ‘the data’ and not……NOT listen to the lies of our children.  So the reconstruction went like this:

-Fatty on the toilet enjoying himself (he REALLY loves to sit there right up until the blood stops getting to his toes)

-Reaching and grabbing the toilet paper and having a go whilst still sitting on the toilet. He produces two large, crumpled pooey pieces of toilet paper (probably one entire roll) and as he is still on the toilet the only place for them to be disposed of is? Well, of course – elementary my dear Watson – the floor.

-Job done in his head however he reaches behind to make sure and gets some deposit on his hand. What to do? What to do?

-So as he slides off the toilet seat, he leaves a nice skid.

-His hands are still covered and the only way of getting that off is to first wipe them on the lid of the toilet and then flick around the walls, the last scraps.

Meanwhile, this Mother of boys, has NO idea what he is doing and her spider/poo senses tingle. As she is dishing up the dinner, she sends the Lips to find Fatty.  He comes back and walks past the mother and her serving spoon:

‘Hey, Lips – so, what is Fatty doing then?’

‘Nothing’

‘What do you mean?’

‘he is on the toilet.’

‘oh no – is her doing a(n unsupervised) poo?’

‘no, just a wee.’

‘ok. great. DIN-NER!!!!’

So Fatty comes down and tucks into his meal.

He hadn’t washed his hands

but that’s ok

they got clean whilst he picked up his food and licked his fingers.

Later that evening, after all the kids were in bed and after not wanting to partake in my husbands inability -to- find- anything- to- watch- on- tv- mad- 30 minute- flick-daily-activity, I took myself up to our Big Room which was daring as were we only at the beginning of March and it is unheated. Still, the sofa is quite comfy (and unripped) and I put on a lamp and found a book.

Lidl came up and found me and I could tell that she was enjoying sniffing around…….sniffing around until she found the right place……to squat and pee on the fecking rug!

That was the end of that 2 minutes of bliss.

It was at this point that I discovered the Independent Poo incident of the upstairs toilet.  To be fair on Fatty, when I suggested the events as I had worked out, he didn’t disagree.