The Husband has decided, again, that he needs to get fit (he has these funny turns every so often) and so has had me out walking three times a week. I haven’t minded that, as I have been inside the house on lockdown for two months now, so it is actually quite nice to get outside. Of course, it isn’t as simple as that with our family though. The first night we went walking, both girls decided to come with us. Youngest Child whined and moaned for the whole hour that we were out. We had only been walking for ten minutes before she started the whole “how much longer?” carry on. She then decided to tell us a story about a girl, and that is about all I can remember because the story went on for so long that I think I actually dozed off, while walking. The Husband was also clearly not paying attention, as he started wittering on about how dreadful every driveway that we passed looked. This sent Youngest Child into meltdown and we had a whole diatribe about how rude we were and how we never listen to her and if she interrupts us she gets told off. I suggested she carried on with her story, to which she replied that she wasn’t going to tell us now and walked ten paces behind us, while calling out every so often to enquire if we were nearly home yet. We had been walking for about fifteen minutes by this point. The muttering carried on for another ten minutes, which we ignored and then she caught up with us and asked, “can I tell you my story now?” Of course, after all the carry on we had to actually listen this time. Well, I pretended to but after ten minutes had gone by and she was still talking, I had lost the will to live and the ability to retain any of the information she was giving me. Hopefully she wasn’t going to ask us questions to test how well we had been listening, which I wouldn’t put past her.
The second time we went out walking, accompanied this time by just Youngest Child, was quite pleasant. Youngest Child brought a scooter and didn’t complain once. I think she actually liked being the only child with the both of us, as that hasn’t happened very often for her, being the third child. The third time, however, was just as stressful as the first. Youngest Child had brought the scooter again, which turned out belonged to Middle Child. Middle Child didn’t seem particularly troubled by this but in fairness she hadn’t used the scooter in about two years. All was well until about halfway through our walk. Middle Child now decided that she wanted to use the scooter and proceeded to try and persuade Youngest Child to hand it over. Of course, this wasn’t going to happen without a fight. To give The Husband his due, he actually engaged in some proper parenting and told Middle Child she couldn’t have it. Despite being fourteen, Middle Child then stomped and whined enough to give a toddler a run for their money, for the next fifteen minutes. In the end we persuaded Youngest Child to let Middle Child have a go on the scooter and placated her by telling her how she was being such a good girl. She still proceeded to mutter about it wasn’t fair and how Middle Child couldn’t just decide she wanted it. By this point I was coming to the conclusion that family walks really weren’t the way forward as both times had turned out to be very stressful. It would be much better for my mental health (although maybe not my physical health) to stay at home and sit in my armchair with a book and a box of chocolates, while the kids stayed upstairs and played their video games. Middle Child, now all smiles because she had managed to procure the scooter, did two bunny hops on it and promptly gave it back! FFS!
In between our walks The Husband decided to go out running and Middle Child accompanied him. Halfway through their run The Husband decided to go for a Burton and tripped over and skidded along the pavement. Apparently Middle Child found this fairly hilarious and instead of helping him up, stood bent over laughing. The poor Husband came home with very large grazes all over his hands, up his arms and down his legs. So out of four attempts at exercise, three of them turned out to be a disaster and each time the common factor was Middle Child 🤔🤔.
I cannot blame Middle Child for the next incident, however, that was completely down to my own stupidity. I had been bothered by the patio doors and kitchen window for a couple of weeks because they were looking streaky, where clearly I hadn’t polished them properly the last time I cleaned them. I don’t know what possessed me on a hot, sunny day, but I decided that now was the time that I was going to do something about it. I managed to do the doors and the main window and was quite pleased with myself that I had actually done something productive that day. I looked at the small window, that was just out of my reach and considered just leaving that one. However, I was on a roll and I was going to do the job properly. I looked at my new armchair and decided against standing on it, as it was new and my favourite piece of furniture and sod’s law says that I would go through the bottom of it. So instead, as I reached up to the window, I decided to put my knee on the very small and not very strong book shelf at the side of the chair. You know when you are about to do something and that little voices tells you it’s not a good idea, but you do it anyway? Well that is exactly what happened and that little voice always ends up telling you, “I told you so!” As my knee touched the top of the shelf, I knew it was a bad idea but before I could stop myself, the knee went down, the shelf collapsed and a large screw sliced through my leg. FFS! I stared at the shelf for a few minutes feeling extremely pissed off with myself before I realised that I was in pain. I looked down at my leg and there was a rather nasty gash, with the skin around it already starting to bruise. On a positive note, I now felt justified in spending £25 on a nice, new first aid kit 😃.
In other news, the Next Door Neighbour has to have surgery on her leg, after she hurt it exercising. The moral of the story is, exercise and cleaning are, clearly, bad for your health. I have now resumed my usual position, in the armchair with a book and a box of chocolates 😊.
The Menopausal Monster and Other Problems 