Etiennelessness Day 1

Last night was the first of 4 Etienneless nights.

I had a vision and a mission and a plan of action for keeping it all together and having an event-free supper and bedtime procedure.  This went for a complete ball of shite approximately 10 seconds after I waltzed in the door. Of course.

By the time I arrived I knew I had an hour to put together a mince pie and steam-fry some broccoli as the rice was already made.  This would keep me bang on schedule to have the kids in bed by 8pm and some quiet sanity time and an early night for me.

I should have known when I walked in the door and our 3 children were perched on the kitchen counter listening to the Titanic soundtrack.  Loudly. They looked depressed.  I wanted to vomit.

Megan was kind of hovering around, with that “I really need to tell you something, but you are not going to like it” look.  As it turns out, when my Mom had arrived just before me she decided to lock our front security gate.  With Megan’s house key.  That was now stuck in said security gate.  And the lock broken.  I went into “It’s fine, don’t worry about it” mode and ushered Megan out the defunct gate, all the way to her car and trying not to glare at my sheepish Mother on the way back.

I had also called the house several times to check on random things yesterday afternoon specifically to check whether our Wild Bag had been collected from the Deli and somehow I was given the impression that it was there, waiting for me on the kitchen counter in all its organic glory.

It wasn’t.

So I do a mad little spin in the kitchen, trying to re-adjust my carefully laid plans and STILL have supper on the table at a reasonable time.  This was a hard task as by this time Mignon was crying because my Mother had retired to the lounge to play a card game with them and someone had committed the crime of Not Letting Her Win. And my Mother was holding her whilst she was sobbing and sending out the “Your own Mother should be holding you when you are crying” vibe loud and clear.

So, I chopped the onions, delegated the mince and ran out the door to go to the deli.

Dinner was only 20 minutes late and the kids in bed 15 minutes after their usual time.  They were really good about reading and going to sleep.  Bless them.

All in all not too bad in the end and this morning also went relatively well, there was no shouting and no-one was harmed.

Tonight is roast chicken which my Mom is making at our house, so hopefully it will be a little calmer.  The sum total of effort required from my side will hopefully be vegetables. (she says whilst knocking her head)

PS If you are wondering about the broken lock, my Dad went off in search of a padlock and I now have a big-ass make-shift (dog) chain and padlock on the gate, so I’m very safe thank you very much.

PPS I am now wondering whether my Mom is going to be able to figure out our oven and having visions of how to explain “the Thermo fan sign” over the telephone.  Oh well.

PPPS:  our home ADSL has been broken for the last 3 days with no word on when it will be fixed.  This does not please me.