THE FAIRY

It’s amazing how much of a mess a “nearly” 3 year old can make in the blink of an eye. Before Sam went into hospital this afternoon the house was quite tidy. I only took my eye off the ball for about 10 minutes and it looked like a tornado went through the front room. There was a train set to the left,  a toy medical kit briefcase with the contents emptied to the right and around 14 books scattered across the middle. How did she manage to move so quickly and quietly without me noticing? In fact, when did she move?? That coupled with Charlie’s nappy exploding up his back made me realise that maybe I should turn FIFA off and attempt a little damage control. After spending almost 15 minutes trying to work out how to get Charlie’s babygrow/vest off of his body, (without smearing the exploded contents of the nappy on his face or in his hair), I decided that legs were the safer option. I should go downwards instead of upwards (he’ll thank me for that in the long run) .

On the way up to the bathroom to wash Charlie’s legs, I realised that everything that had gathered around the dinner table during the morning (jacket, post, kids toys, the odd mug) was still there. That’s when I realised that they are always “still there” it’s just Sam has always got to it first. You see, it’s not that she’s always tidying up after me (honest), it’s just her “mess threshold” is lower than mine. I mean, I’ll tidy it of course but it’s normally at a point where I notice it’s a mess. Unfortunately, it’s only when Sam isn’t here that it ever hits my threshold.

When my mum died last year, my dad said something to me on the morning of her funeral. It was something that I never fully understood until now. He looked at me and said “That’s the end of my childhood”. I couldn’t quite work it out then. I get it now.

We have this little joke in our house about the boxer short fairy (there’s a sock fairy too). It keeps filling up the drawers just when they are about to become empty. You see, if I go to the drawer and it’s empty then I think “better do some washing”. It’s just that it never gets to that point because the fairy always gets there first.

I think the fairy is going to need to take a rest for a while.

This is going to be a lot harder than I thought (and we haven’t even started yet).