For the first of the month. My boys do not know the ‘pinch and a punch’ game – we don’t want to give them any more reasons to hit each-other. It didn’t stop them today – they don’t need a reason to mortally wound each-other. They flew around the house punching, kicking, spitting, poking, eyeballing, crying, teasing, blaming, each-other ALL DAY. I’m especially fond of the ‘[insert name here] is an idiot’ song. I know all the words now. It’s not hard; you sing ‘[insert name here is an idiot]’ over and over and over again. This is why Mummy drinks. Except she doesn’t this year – and besides they started at 7am.

The reason for their cabin fever? The grumpy Dutchman and I were cleaning the house. A proper vacuum under the beds, lift the ornaments to dust under them, change the portraits of the boys to the latest ones and sort out the wardrobe, clean out. And we didn’t get it through all of it yet. Do you have an ‘Office’ in your house? We do. But in ours is the stroller we haven’t used in two years, clothes we haven’t worn in longer than that, every piece of paper the boys ever drew, painted or dribbled on and you can’t see the desk for the bills, books and general detritus that we don’t know where else to put. The office is the last room left to conquer. We have resolved to tackle it this week but I am not hopeful.

We also did a food shop, got new curtains for the lounge and then the GD hung them, I made Pork and Fennel Meatballs and pasta thanks to the IQS program (DELICIOUS) and baked ‘Coco-nutty breakfast muffins’ (also part of the menu plan). And I managed to squeeze in a breakfast date with one of my best gals.

Am completely and utterly fucked. Exhausted. Shattered. Knackered. Bone tired. This is why our house is normally a pig sty – it’s too damn tiring to be a clean and tidy household! Not when you have a four year old who delights in making as much mess as possible in as short a time as possible. He just followed us around today waiting until a room was immaculate so that he could fuck it up. Ash on the freshly vacuumed carpet, cushions on the floor, folded washing looks like a tornado hit it, the GD scrubbed the bathroom and he went in moments later and flooded it.

So our house will be clean for about 3 days at the outside (he’ll be at daycare during the day so he has less hours to screw with us). If you  don’t see it during this time then you’ll just have to take my word for it.