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.