Seven Sharp

Every time I walk into the twins’ room this week I am gripped by a fresh wave of despair. And it’s all thanks to Seven Sharp.

I’m usually quietly chuffed when a news item or documentary on the tele manages to capture the kids’ attention but little did I know that last week’s item about a man with a penchant for collecting toys and displaying them in his home museum was igniting the spark of an idea within Master Seven.

I’m sure I’ve gone on before about my little sloths – one in particular. Miss Seven is a magpie and collects everything and anything, then forgets she has it. I’ve tried telling her the rats and mice and cockroaches like to live in mess, ie her side of the room but, although it conjures up a little shudder, it makes little difference.

It gets to the point where it is diabolical chaos and I cannot see any way how they could deal with it. Therefore I procrastinate the arduous task of tidying the twin’s room and make it a once-a-month job, thereby enabling me to poke the vacuum into their room. This month, however, I took it a step further and looked at it through renewed eyes. They had long outgrown the alphabet blocks and multi-coloured paraphernalia that had adorned their room since it was a nursery. I set about minimalizing their room and, when I came up for air, was quite pleased with the outcome and the space it had created. Miss Seven’s dressing table, which had been mine when I was little, now, once again, resembled a little girl’s dresser with all her grooming odds and ends and jewellery neatly displayed.

That was the night Seven Sharp was on. The man’s toy collection was impressive and I found myself pausing and rewinding to take in his range with the kids.

That night I went downstairs to tuck in the sprogs and stopped in my tracks. Miss Seven’s dressing table was covered in cars! Hundreds of them. There wasn’t a clear surface in sight as I took in the Hot Wheels collection lined up like a car sales yard.

“Ta-daaa,” exclaimed Master Seven proudly, while his sister lay in bed looking meek.

“What’s happened?” I asked, still floored.

“I made a car museum.”

“But where are all your sister’s things?” I asked.

“Over there,” he pointed to a corner of the room where they sat in a sorry pile.

“Why did you let that happen?” I asked Miss Seven.

“Because he swapped my dressing table for a car,” she said, proffering a manky-looking Hot Wheel from under the covers.

This did not sound like a fair trade to me – indeed my sweet-natured Miss Seven had been shafted. I can’t bring myself to destroy the ‘museum’ Master Seven so proudly compiled, nor can I set foot in their room, after all my work, and bear to see it, once again, resembling a trash heap.

I know how a spider must feel after it has laboriously weaved the perfect web, only to have some human come along and destroy it in one swipe. The story of a mother’s life.

First Day

It was the first day of school – the night before I had been all prepared: school uniforms laid out, lunches in the fridge. So how did I find myself standing in a yellow high-vis vest, road-side while Miss Seven’s new stationary and school shorts hung sodden from the clothesline?

The kids were just walking up the drive and I was locking up when all hell broke loose.

“Mum, (Miss Seven) has wet her pants,” cried twin bro.

Sure enough, her shorts were soaking wet.

“How did that happen?” I asked, amidst the teasing.

She was just as baffled but, upon further inspection, it turned out her drink bottle had leaked through her bag and out the bottom, rendering her new stationary drenched in the process.

I hauled us back upstairs to change into another pair of school uniform pants but discovered that, during the course of the summer holidays, they had gone awol.

I eventually dug out an old pair of tights with holes in the butt, careful not to bring this to her or her brothers’ attention, strung her other pair and stationary to the line and we started up the drive again a tad more stressed than the previous attempt.

At school we were met at the gate by Master Nine’s classmate informing him they were on road patrol duty together. Oops – I seemed to remember reluctantly putting my name down for that at Master Nine’s insistence.

Checking the kids into their new classes and meeting the teachers would have to wait for another day as off we went to don our vests, only 20-minutes late for the first day of duty. Luckily the kids were clued up as it was a case of learning on the job for me.

I returned home for a nice mochaccino, re-writing the start to the school year in my head and ignoring the sorry state of the already dry but misshapen books bedraggling from the line.

The next week’s road patrol was more of a success (I’d watched the dvd for parents and shown up on time). However, Master Nine wasn’t as switched on.

“Sign’s Ouuut,” sung his companion, swinging out his sign into the stifling afternoon heat.

No movement from Master Nine across the road. 

“Siiigns Ouuut!” he repeated.

Still he didn’t budge.

We shouted at him to hurry up and finally he launched his sign out, allowing people to cross. 

“What was up with you before?” I asked on the way home. “Why didn’t you hear us?”

“I did hear you but my jandal was stuck to this sticky black stuff on the road and I couldn’t move,” he answered.

Ahhh, that explains it!

I relayed the story of The Twits when the boys were glued to the tree branch and climbed out of their pants to escape and suggested next time, albeit with his jandals, he follow suit.