I have Children

I have Children ©

By Michael Casey

I opened the cupboard to get a cup, crackers tumbled out, followed by straws, multi-coloured straws. I looked for a spoon only there were none. I went searching for spoons, only to find them magnetised in a clump on my girls’ bedroom floor. Magnets are very attractive to enquiring minds, so they had to be tested, just how many spoons could one magnet hold. As for me and my tea, I’d have to use a finger to stir it.

I retreated with spoons galore, I hid the magnet under a bed, they’d never think of looking for it there. A bit of toast would be nice, at least the knives were in the right place. Now where was the jam? I looked high and low, and in the end I gave up, only to find the empty jam jar in the bin, as I discarded my tea bag. Children eat your favourite things first, you may as well have a gannet in the house.

I’ll pop up the road to get more milk and bread, I have to be careful nowadays with weight of the shopping, too much sets my screaming and wincing. Relief comes at home when I squeeze out the tube of Movelat pain killer. Where does the milk go to? Its hot chocolate for my children, for my girls, and then there are Cheerios, their favourite cereal, or rather the cheaper Aldi version. I swear we should buy a cow, my cousin has a dairy herd, perhaps he should send one over from Kerry. I do like milk myself, but I blame my girls, my thief like girls, they drink all my milk.

I have children, there is the cascade of scarfs and gloves when I go rooting for my coat in the pantry under the stairs. Then there are slippers galore all over the floor as I try and negotiate my way to the door. As I head for the shops there is the shout for chocolate, why do children and girls especially love chocolate so much. Forget the bread, just bring chocolate. Or in our house, forget the rice, just bring chocolate.

I need the bathroom, I have to fight my way through our galley kitchen, past one obstruction, a wife with a cleaver and a wok. Only to discover 2 more in the bathroom, 2 girls, why is it always 2 girls in the bathroom? Go pee in the garden I am told, or use a clothes peg as a clamp adds my scientific wife. Just as my bladder is about to explode I am allowed to use the bathroom, don’t pee on the floor advises my wife as she brings down the cleaver, amputating a fish’s head. I leave the bathroom, relieved, and them nagged for getting in the way as the chef is at work.

I get to the living room, I stumble over books and jumpers, I want to watch the news, only Peppa Pig is on. If it was up to me Peppa Pig would be having her trotters removed by the Chinese chef in the kitchen. Then I sit down in my spot,  demanding my cushions be returned to support my back, I have children, so they throw Looney Chick at me instead. Looney Chick has been a great support since 2009 when he arrived in our house from Shanghai, a back support.

My daughter wants to be a vet so while I am eating she is watching a documentary, so I have to avert my gaze otherwise I’d need a bucket to be sick into. I am laughed at and shamed by my children, by my wife too. Three against one are the odds.

It’s a school day, nine is bedtime, or rather the time you want them up the stairs, out of the way, not watching Peppa Pig. So there is bedtime and preparing for bed bedtime, which usually means by 9.30 or 9.45 they are finally out the way, out the way of the tv.

I am alone with the wife, now she wants to watch Chinese TV, I turn to Looney Chick and start speaking French to him, occasionally Spanish.

 I can hear laughter from the door to the stairs, my children are listening and spying. Go to bed I command, but they need a drink so I have to relent, and give another kiss goodnight. I have children, I have children.