Monday 30 December 2013

Orange Rhinoceros

Christmas! Joy of joys, brand new toys, the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and the opportunity to create bloody boatloads of CARNAGE if you are one of the unfortunate residents of Axis Towers. The gruesome twosome had a fairly tepid kickoff to the season of goodwill to all men and evildoing to Mummy; the odd tantrum, some fairly unremarkable punchups over the Christmas tree, howls of dismay as one licked the other's mince pies and then put it back on the plate, an unfortunate incident involving next door's dog and a chicken drumstick waved, tortuously, just out of reach. By the time school broke up, Christmas had been cancelled and reinstated several times, Santa had rescinded presents on a percentage basis, and chocolate had been banned, for life, for both boys, approximately 15 times over each. 

Now that the Axis are a bit older, their interaction is far less dependent on me - apart from mopping up the blood, that is. This means they can do things together, without me or anyone else, and, as a result, seem to have almost developed their own little secret world. It's quite cute, most of the time. I mean, I don't think they're establishing any kind of cultish alternative society, but I'll keep half an eye on the Kool-Aid, just in case. 

As well as being part of fulfilling my parental duty to nose around in their business, eavesdropping on my sons occasionally affords me insights into my own, often less-than-perfect. Take, as an example, the day that I desperately needed to clean the whole house in half an hour, because we had visitors coming and I'd been at work. Clearly, a large and constructive part of the cleaning process involves yelling at the kids to pick stuff up, leading, obviously, to them flinging whatever they're currently playing with over their shoulder and poking around with the thing they should be picking up, before abandoning that too in favour of creating yet more chaos, until the whole house looks even more like it's just been burgled than it did before. I regret to admit that some choice insults left my lips in the general direction of my two little cherubs that day. Later on, once they'd fled the onslaught, I overheard them playing I-Spy. 

Pie: 'I spy, with my little STINKY eye, something beginning with M-M.' Kong: 'M-M? Is it Bumheads?' Pie: 'HEH HEH HEH! No.'

And so on, and so forth. What could it be? What devilish concatenation had the Pie concocted? Kong quickly conceded defeat and Pie revealed the answer: 'It stands for Moody Mummy!' Both boys fell about laughing. This was the same day that I discovered that, attached to a photograph of a large and particularly unappealing chimp, some child had put a Post-It note with the word 'MUM' writ large and an arrow pointing to said ape. I resisted the temptation to burst forth into room like a screaming Medusa and paused. I realised I felt slightly embarrassed; my behaviour had been unmeasured, unreasonable, and I had done the very thing I'd always said I wouldn't with my kids; terrorise them with shouting. OK, so they didn't appear particularly terrorised - but that's not the point. I'd been really going for it, yelling at them. I felt very sheepish and slowly made my way downstairs with a load of laundry for the machine, revisiting the mental list I'd compiled since the age of about 15 of things I'd never do to my own kids. 

I suppose everyone does this, and a lot of people laugh about it and say, ah, well, I didn't know then what I know now...meaning, I think, that they were unrealistic about their expectations when they ruled things out or in. I don't really feel that way. Without going into exactly what is on my list, I think I had the right idea. I resolve to try harder and be more patient with the feral little stinkers. 

One of the things that is on my list, however, is to do with Christmas. I've had some truly awful Christmases, alone, depressed, ill, grieving, drunk, or Christmases that were a load of work and no bloody fun. I tend to dread Christmas, and last year, this got to such a low that I sent the Axis packing off to their dad's, planning to spend it alone, under a duvet. Luckily, a kind neighbour took pity on me and instead I had the first enjoyable Christmas of my adult life. 

So this year, I realised that the three of us, now that we're firmly established as a single-parent family unit, rather than a broken family with one piece missing, could have, and deserved to have, a proper, decent Christmas. I bought a turkey, made stuffing in advance according to kindly neighbour's recipe, bored everyone to tears with interesting facts about roasting potatoes, engaged in the annual slagging off of the John Lewis ad, and dressed the Axis up as kings (ok, mobsters) for the church crib service on Christmas Eve (which was another, highly embarrassing, occasion, but not for now). On Christmas Day, the Axis scoffed loads of sweets and chocolates, ran around screaming, belted each other a bit, piled huge amounts of roasties and bacon rolls onto their plates at lunch, and fell asleep cuddling each other and me on the sofa to a Christmas film (well, not quite. A film about Mexican wrestling the house hero, Jack Black. Close enough). 

I wrested myself free and surveyed the damage. The floor was covered in gift wrap and there were several near-lethal Lego models scattered around unevenly for maximum foot injury potential. In the kitchen, there was an open bottle of squash lying on its side, dripping viscous orange onto the floor in a disturbingly large puddle. I felt my blood pressure rise, and opened my mouth - and stopped myself. No. No more yelling. Or at least not today. 

I wandered back into the front room, switched off the telly, and put that Johnny Mathis song on the stereo, quietly, watching the Axis in their semi-slumber. A large drop of drool was forming on the Pie's lips and was about to drop into the Kong's ear. In less than five seconds, all hell was going to break loose. But for now, happy Christmas, my beloved little ratbags.