Bloodied but unbowed

The past few months have been frankly hellish here at Axis Towers; indeed, I feel relieved and lucky that we still remain here at Axis Towers, and the only silver lining has been that I've had a lot more time and attention to lavish on the gruesome twosome. As you might well imagine, this has been repaid not with affection and the rapid completion of chores, but with ever-louder bellows for 'JUUUUUICE! MUUUUM!!!' (Pie) and an increasingly lax attitude to using the toilet as opposed to the carpet (Kong). Following the Bank Holiday to celebrate 60 years of QEII, I decided to take stock of the Axis' more irksome activities over the past four days, and have come up with the following highlights:

1. Spreading of substances: In particular, anything brown and sticky, which includes bits of chewed-up stick and anything else more noxious that fits that description. The Kong's ingenuity and an unprecedented growth spurt meant that the vile pair were able to clamber upon the kitchen worktop and scoop Nutella out of the jar with their fingers. Kong then trailed his hands across the walls all the way from the kitchen to his bedroom (two floors up). This alone was bad enough, but the fact that he stopped off at the lavvy en route meant I had to sniff each metre of stained wall to determine whether bleach or mere Flash was the more appropriate detergent. Disgusting.

2. Gratuitous dropping of small and sharp objects: Now, I know that this is a torture common to most parents, but the Axis have taken it to a whole new level with the entropic nature of their object-dropping. Per square foot, it is not unusual to find bricks/puzzle pieces/game pieces etc belonging to more than 10 different toys, none of which can be easily located in the quick 5-minute bedtime tidy. Net result - shove the lot in cupboard for Axis to have ready access to missiles when they lure their friends round.

3. Honesty: 'Why doesn't Daddy live with us any more, Mummy? Is it cos you keep on being a bitch to him?' Obviously I went suitably ape at this particular incident, although I didn't consider the perpetrator to be the poor old Pie but the more obviously immature Daddio, whose chavtastic tastes in potential stepmothers for the Axis has caused enough of a knock to my self-esteem to ensure I spend every Saturday night from hereon in sat in front of World's Craziest Fools eating whatever Nutella remains directly from the jar with a spoon. Unexpectedly, the worst thing about their honesty is that it shows up my copied-from-Supernanny disciplinary methods for the ill-considered cod child development it obviously is...Me: 'Kong! You have been put on the naughty step for smacking your brother round the head with Buzz Lightyear/crapping in the flowerbed/streaking naked down Stoke Hill and causing a pile-up of pensioners. That is naughty behaviour. Are you going to stop it and be a good boy?' Kong: 'No.' 'Nuff said...

4. And finally...GOING ON. AND ON. AND *&*^ING ON. I don't need to elaborate on this. It's wearing me just describing it.

I mean, there are lots of good things they do too. Pie doing his streetdance classes and worshipping astronauts and rock guitarists. Kong telling everyone to come to his birthday and insisting on wearing a crown for the entire day for his actual birthday. And then there's the many times a day when I get a nice cuddle from them and they shout 'love you Mum' before running off to do something heinous, even when I'm a snivelling wreck from all the other crapulousness going on. But let's be honest, no-one wants to hear about that. Nothing impresses me as much as my boys' capacity for creative thinking/horrendous mischief. And I suspect it's the thing most of my mates like best about them, too.