Yesterday afternoon, while building a new raised planter box for an extension to the veggie patch, RJ and LR came out to help. Putting on my “Responsible Father” hat, I decided against letting them carve up the planks of wood with the saw. Determined to help do something, they chose to attack the rose bushes with the hedge trimmers.
This wasn’t a problem — the roses are scheduled to be deleted sometime soon when Mum reformats the gardens. To give the kids some purpose, I suggested we try to make perfume or rosewater out of the rose blooms. “Great,” they said, and asked how to make it.
I managed to describe the processes while trying to sink the posts for the garden bed without destroying the incredibly convoluted system of pipes and tubes that make up our irrigation system. LR picked rosewater and immediately ran off and got to work. RJ decided to make perfume, and then asked where he could get alcohol.
(out in our fairly small back yard, neighbours just a few metres away in all directions)
RJ: Can you get me some alcohol?
Dad: I need to finish this bit of the project, RJ. I can’t help you right now.
RJ: (getting upset) But I need it now. I need to make perfume.
Dad: I understand. You really want to get started, but I can’t help yet. You have to wait.
(this repeats a few times as RJ gets more and more upset)
RJ: (angry and screaming) I NEED ALCOHOL. YOU NEED TO GIVE ME ALCOHOL NOW!
Dad: No! No alcohol for you until later!
RJ: (at the top of his lungs) I WONT WAIT! GIVE ME SOME ALCOHOL! I NEED ALCOHOL.
(this repeats a few more times and eventually he breaks down into tears)
RJ: (sobbing, yet still somehow very loud) Please daddy, please get me some alcohol. I only need a little bit.
I’m just waiting for a knock on the door from family services… They’ll probably be taking my “Responsible Father” hat with them.
Check out the video…You won’t believe it’s calm, weatherless Perth! We came through a doozy! The good news is that we’re all fine, despite being at the local rubbish tip/dump when the storm hit (flat plain, surrounded by metal, on the back of a metal truck) with lightning flashing all around.
The old house doesn’t have any damage at all that I could see; although all of our neighbours have smashed windows and water damage. Grammy and Poppa’s house is NOT waterproof, but our new house looks fine from the outside.
L gets a few days off of school, because the roof of the outdoor area is destroyed. And the hospital (where my office is) still hasn’t restored full power. My office has two inches of water in it and a collapsed ceiling.
The good news is that we don’t have to repair the old house before it goes on the market this weekend!!!!
And yes, the kids had a great time darting outside to grab hailstones and other fun stuff during the brief moments of calm in the weather. We’ve got golfball sized hailstones filling the freezer (some people around here were pummeled by baseball-sized monsters!).
When you’re running late to get out of the house and you’re already in the middle of child-induced battle number twelve of the day, this time over how it is absolutely vital that these ten, no ELEVEN things (including a toy frog, a pirate eyepatch, a piece of plastic rubbish, a cup full of toothpaste, a licked-but-not-eaten piece of toast and more) come along in the car on the way to school with you and you just KNOW that when you get there, the argument will begin all over again because there’s no possible way that a kid can survive a day at school without any one of these items, let alone all tenELEVEN of them and you’re mentally screaming “Why, why, why did I sign up for this and why can’t they just be sensible, rational human beings … only smaller and cuter?!” and the dull ache of bruises on your shins remind you of the collateral damage you took from the frenzied storm of kicking and thrashing incited by the peace keeping operation you carried out earlier so that they didn’t claw each other’s eyes out, you need close your eyes for a second and remember the moments like this.
