Peace for the homeworkers

Change is afoot. The Husband (TH) plans to work from home more in future to enable us to 'spend more time together as a family'.

I am excited.

I am picturing us all breakfasting together over pancakes and maple syrup in the style of a latter day advertisement for Bisto.

Ah...

*******

So we have a trial run.

'Now, remember that I am working, so I don't want the kids disturbing me,' he says.

'Right, ' I nod dutifully.

'And I've got a teleconference at 1pm, so I'll need some peace and quiet then for sure.'

'Fine. They'll probably be napping then anyway,' I reply.

I try to keep The Son (TS) and The Daughter (TD) entertained with supposedly 'quiet' activities, such as puzzles and drawing, after I have cleaned the kitchen following a cereal throwing incident.

TH pops upstairs to make a coffee.

TS and TD look excited. Daddy is home from work already!

I tell them that Daddy is going away again any minute now to work some more and shuffle them back into the living room.

The morning passes off without too many noisy ructions and TS and TD disappear upstairs for a nap.

TH reappears to make us both some lunch, which, he says, we will sit down together to eat. How civilised and quaint! I say I will sort through the laundry in the meantime.

But then he hears his mobile ringing downstairs.

'Damn, the teleconference is now - must have got the times muddled up. Don't suppose you could finish making lunch and bring me down my soup and sandwich when it's ready?'

I abandon the 15ft high pile of dirty sheets and towels and rush upstairs to grab the almost-burnt sandwich from under the grill and put the soup into a pan.

After delivering lunch to TH who is spouting acronyms at a rate of one every fifteen seconds, I wolf down my own lunch and then sit down at the computer to sort out a few bills online whilst TS and TD are still sleeping.

Suddenly a small box appears on the bottom of the screen (must be the new instant messaging service TH said we were signed up to):

'Please bring me down a glass of water and a coffee - still on teleconference.'

The cheek!

I carry on with the bill-paying and make a quick phonecall to rearrange a doctor's appointment before darting downstairs to shove on another load of laundry.

Ten minutes later, my mobile rings.

TH is talking in a whisper: 'Hey! Where's my glass of water and coffee? I IM-ed you ages ago!'

'Al-right!' I mutter, irritatedly.

So I dart back into the kitchen to prepare a tray of hot and cold beverages for his delectation.

I place them carefully in front of him and tiptoe out of the room.

'Psssssst!' he hisses and points at the soup bowl and plate, which I duly relieve him of before going back upstairs.

I settle down in front of the computer again and just as I am rebooting, I hear a some crying from upstairs: TS and TD are awake.

Great, just great.

*******

So, assuming I can find a nearby building in which to spend the hours between 9am and 5.30pm with TS and TD, I reckon that TH's 'working from home' thing could be a great success.

Role reversal

The Daughter (TD) and I are having a bath together.

A stream of bubbles rocket up from TD's vicinity.

'Faht!' she giggles.

The Husband wanders in, keen to be in on the joke.

'Has somebody here done a fart?' he asks.

More giggles.

'Who's done a fart then?'

'Mummy faht!'

*******

Seems like only yesterday we were blaming the children for any foul odours about our person (and getting away with it).

Will clearly have to develop a new strategy in future.

Suburban debauchery

One day last week, there was a knock at my front door.

It was a besuited young man, not quite old enough to be my child.

But nearly.

'Come on in,' I beckoned.

He shuffled his feet back and forth over the mat in the hallway.

'Can I just leave you to it? I'm a bit busy just now. Feel free to go upstairs on your own - I'll be up in a minute,' I gabbled.

'Sure,' he replied, very business-like.

*******

So this is how is happens, I thought.

Housewives and stay-at-home mums, strung out on daytime television and an overdose of Cbeebies, devoid of adult conversation, drinking their third cup of cold coffee...

Not that that's me, you understand.

(I always take the time to microwave the two-hour-old coffee.)

But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I hadn't given a second thought to the men who come calling at my house during daylight hours.

First up: the postman. Nope. Not only does he suffer from something of a dowager's hump (possibly explaining the recent acquisition of a post trolley), but he is always rather surly, more so since we complained to the Royal Mail about missing items of post. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he was sprinkling anthrax on our Next and La Redoute catalogues as revenge.

The window cleaner. Uh-uh. Call me ageist, but he's a grandfather! (Although, round here, that could mean he's anything upwards of thirty-two). And then, of course, his is a very hazardous profession. And one has to think of one's future. One doesn't want to be left on one's own with one's young children to bring up after one's new lover has been horribly incapacitated following a tumble from a twenty foot ladder.

Next up: the gas and electricity meter readers. Thing is, staff turnover seems to be an issue with this company. We never see the same guy twice. So if you're talking about building the foundations of a lasting relationship, well, it just ain't going to happen. And those luminous jackets? They don't flatter even the most Adonis-like specimens.

The best contenders yet are the landscape gardeners. I suppose it's no surprise, really. They work outside all year long, digging and humping big bags of compost. So what you're getting is well-toned, bronzed (and in summer, T-shirt-less) bodies. And ours was something of an aspirant Monty Don (PPE, Oxbridge, did the City thing then 'downshifted', wanting to 'work the land just like our forebears').

But you can't be calling a landscape gardener every six months to rearrange a 15ft X 20ft patch of grass, can you?

*******

Anyway, back to the young man.

Having done what he needed to do (and believe me, it took a lot longer than I had anticipated), he sauntered into the living room.

'Well, Ms Sweet, what a well-preserved home you have! I don't think we'll have any problems selling. I'll stick a letter of valuation in the post when I get back to the office.'

And, without so much of a backwards glance, he was off.

Meantimes, I ran a hand through the mini oil slick on top of my head and decided, after some extensive internal dialogue, that it was indeed four days since I had washed my hair.

'Can probably hang on for another day,' I decided.

And with that, I flicked the TV back to 'This Morning'.

Co-conspirators

The Son (TS) and The Daughter (TD) want a post-prandial biscuit.

This is fine. When it comes to food, I am very firmly in the 'live and let live' branch of Motherhood (as opposed to the fascist 'no sugar until they're 21' camp).

Of course, we have to resort to various forms of subterfuge when other mothers coming a-calling with their untainted-by-evil-foodstuffs kids.

So I have a small stash of rice cakes, multi-grain breadsticks and the omnipresent mini packets of organic raisins prominently displayed in my kitchen.

'Would Felix like a rice cake?'

'Ooh, I'm sure he would! Would you like a rice cake, Felix?'

(Of course, it's a rhetorical question, seeing as Felix is only nine months' old and can't yet speak to proclaim his hearty dislike of this disc-shaped styrofoam substitute.)

TS and TD are very good. I hand them a rice cake each too and they don't say 'ooh, what are these, Mummy?' or 'but can't we have a jaffa cake?'. They crunch through at least three each before I move onto the raisins. And, if offered a banana instead of their habitual chocolate chip cookie as a mid afternoon snack at a friend's house, they don't so much as bat an eyelid between them.

I'm ever so proud of them!

However, if the other mother hints at a diet which may include 5% of the RDA for saturated fat, I might consider confiding that I do also have some biscuits.

But lest you start to think that I am one of those mothers, please appreciate that I have my standards. I insist my biscuit offerings have healthy-sounding names, such as Digestive and Malted Milk.

Besides, this works well alongside my non-diet. Who, jittery and in need of a sugar rush, will want to reach for something so dull and wholesome?

*******

That said, if in the act of reaching for two such biscuits whilst holding a small child under one arm, one biscuit was to fall to the ground and break into three pieces, I may have to make an exception.

I mean, it's a well known fact that broken pieces of biscuit have a lower calorific value than they would whole.