Cream Pies and Green Apples

My three year old asks for a green apple.
'A green apple.' he clarifies.
'I want one too', says the five year old.
'A green apple,' he adds.
They are both skipping around, excited about their green apples.  I cut them slices of green apple. The three year old takes them. The five year old wails.
'I wanted a red apple. Why can't I have a red apple? '
It's true there's a red apple sitting in the fruit bowl with the green apples.
'You asked for a green apple.'
'I wanted red.'
'Well, I've cut green.'
'I want red.'
The boy is going to break me.  Do I give in?
'Well, what do you say?'
'Please can I have red.'
I reluctantly cut a red apple and eat the other half of the green one. Later when he comes out of school, he's thirsty.
'Mum I need water.'
'I don't have any water.'
'But I need water.'
'OK. Well, we'll get some at the music class.'  We are taking the seven year old to his guitar class.
'But I'm thirsty.'
'Did you have water at snack time?'
'No'
'Why not?'
'I'm thirsty now, not then.'
'Well, wouldn't it be nice if there was a tap in the car and we could get water whenever we like.'
We briefly digress into the imaginary tap idea, having it dispense apple juice and frozen tubes of popsicles. This is too much or the five year old. 
'I'm thirsty.' he wails
'We will get some water at the water fountain when we stop.'
It's after we have delivered the seven year old to his music teacher and as we are finding the water fountain for the five year old that the three year old tells me he needs to do a pee.  The bathroom is one of those sealed rooms with a heavy door. The three year old doesn't want to be in there on his own with the terrifying flush and the noisy air dryer.  I go in with him.  The five year old waits in the empty corridor outside. We wash our hands and when I try and open the door it is even heavier than I'm expecting. I push against it and realize the five year old is pushing just as hard the other side.  I give it a good shove. He's pushing against it as if he's holding back flood waters.  My shove is stronger though, and he is pushed aside.
'You hurt me' he wails, indignant.
'You were trying to shut us in the bathroom!'
I'm reduced to this peevishness.
'Would you like it if someone was trying to trap you in a bathroom?' I say.
'But you hurt me.'
I feel bullied and angry and tired. Later I tell my husband about it. I know it's petty. I ended up fighting with the seven year old too. I let him play on the computer while I was preparing supper and afterwards when I asked him to get his backpack from the car he started crying about how terrified he was of the garage and how he couldn't do it because he was so scared.
'You don't get computer privileges if you can't do simple things like get your backpack from the car.'

'Do you think he was trying to make you laugh?' My husband asks when I tell him about the bathroom story.
Trying to make me laugh? I hadn't looked at it this way. Then I imagine him telling his brothers. 'I trapped mum in the loo.' Yes, perhaps he might have been trying to make them laugh. 'So-and-so says he trapped his mum in the bathroom.'  That might have some punch in the playground.

I was on a long haul flight with my husband many years ago. When we had our meal trays delivered he stuffed my face in the cream pie. He could not understand my rage.  His implication was that any fun loving gal would have had a good old laugh about that.  I felt like I was the kid sister and I was fed up of being the kid sister.
'Were we married when you stuffed my face in the custard pie?' I ask him.
'It wasn't like that' he says, smiling.  And damn it if I'm not smiling too.
I demonstrate for him with my own hand the pressure on my neck as he forced my face into the sweet marshmallow fluff. He says that's not true. I apparently lifted the pie up to smell it and he gave my head a little push so I got a tiny bit of cream on my nose. Was it flirtatious then? Or did he think I'd laugh?
'Were we married?' I ask him.
'I think we were on our way to Australia.' So I married him in spite of the custard pie. 'Three hours out of Heathrow' he adds.
'Three hours out of Heathrow on a 24 hour flight, you thought it was a good idea to stuff my face in a cream pie.'

Being trapped in the bathroom by your five year old, having your face stuffed in a pie by your husband. I should lighten up.  I should lighten up and try and see the world through the inscrutable lens of a small boy.  Because I live with four of them. The little shits.

Hello again...

Good God...it's been months.  I've been busy writing elsewhere (on my computer) but my blog is beginning to feel alarmingly neglected. 
The current status in our house is that we have a nearly-eight year old raging with hormones who needs to be exercised like a whippet if we are to get any peace. The said exercise makes the five year old extremely morose and he starts whining about milkshakes and smoothies as soon as his heart rate quickens. I think he equates the beat in his chest with fear-pumping adrenaline when he meets an unknown dog which, in this town, is about 3 times a minute. The three year old, amazingly, just keeps going. He takes tactics from both his brothers and uses them when needed; raging and moaning in turn. By the time they fall into bed they are all kisses and tickles and I wonder how the day can have been quite so exhausting. 
The other night the five year old woke me from my sleep wailing.
I don't want there to be a war! he cried.
Had he heard about Putin in the Crimea? About Assad and Syria? I wanted to agree with him.
Do we have to sign up? I hugged him.
Was he thinking of soccer? We have signed up for that.
No I said. You don't sign up for war. You don't have to fight. There is no war.
Will Dad be back for the war? (My husband was away.)
There is no war. 
But you said! he accuses me. You said on the phone there was fighting.
My love, I think I was talking about you and your brothers. (That might have been the day the sibling rivalry got so much that I wanted to text 'help' to someone but couldn't think who to send it to. I ended up calling my mother to commiserate about my parenting skills.)
There is no fighting.
I don't want to die! he wails as I lie him back down in his bed and stroke his hair.
I don't want to die!
In the morning we oversleep because it took us so long to get back to sleep after the war stuff. We eat breakfast in the car and I have to stop the school run twice because the five year old says he's going to be sick.  Haste is not his forte.
Yesterday I had an entire afternoon to myself. Well, an afternoon that started at 3.30pm but it ended well past 8pm. The quiet! It intensified at teatime when there should have been bickering and shoving as hands were washed, the menu was assessed for vegetable content and favoritism was determined by the distribution of particular plates and cutlery. Instead there was the imperceptible sound of the kettle boiling as I made myself a cup of tea. The boys were at the beach and stayed there eating hotdogs well beyond their bedtime. I was at my computer as the dark crept in without me noticing until I was cloaked in luxurious inky silence. With not a wail to be heard.

Turkey Holiday highlights

So we've had the turkey holiday as my seven year old calls it. We brined it, we cooked it, we basted it and ate it.  For two days we had turkey sandwiches and warm turkey salad. Yesterday I pulled the rest of the flesh off the carcass and boiled it for 3 hours. Today we ate broccoli soup made with turkey stock.
Is there any more turkey left? Oli asked, wincing a little.
I've frozen it. I told him.
What have you done with its head? he asked, as if I might be saving it for some particular pastry-wrapped delicacy, just for him.
It didn't come with a head. I told him. Do we have to talk about this now? I asked. We were eating the broccoli soup. I can see vividly its wobbly neck and how I tucked the bumpy flap of skin under its body in the roasting pan, not sure if there was something else I should have done with it - trussed it perhaps?  It dripped small stalactites of fat as it cooked.
The three year old had gaged at the sweet potato gratin on his Thanksgiving plate.  Oli valiantly ate what he could in order to get access to the apple pie he knew would follow.
The sun shone, though it was just cold enough in the shade to feel like it could be November.  The boys go back to school tomorrow and tonight I sat on Oli's bed and asked him what had been the best day of the week.  I would like to write a book through the mind of a five year old boy. There is magic there.  Was it, I asked, the first day when you played animal races all over the house with your stuffed toys and when we finally got out at 3 o'clock to go to the park, we saw the police motorbike on the street corner and when we went to investigate found that Barack Obama was going to go past any minute and we waited and saw all the police cars and men in flak jackets and Obama looking out of his SUV with the window down? Or was it the day when Wendy, who was staying with us, walked you up to the bookshop to buy you a book each and then we came home and read and played? Or was it the next day when we went to Golden Gate Park and you climbed a tree and then we ran some errands and went to the post office? Or the Turkey day when we walked in the Presidio and the Robinsons came and ate the food in the afternoon? Or the next day when Keanu and Luca came over and we went out to play? Or today when we met Henrik on the beach and had lunch at the Pelican Inn? Which day was it?
I am thinking, yes! we had fun! We actually did it this time!
It was all good says Oli, except the day we saw Brack Obrama, because we wasted time when we could have been at the park.
That same day, my seven year old had said at supper, The bad thing about being the President is - you can't be a police motorbike rider.
That's true  I conceded.
Or a dump truck driver  Oli added.
We ate on in silence. There's no disputing that.

Time wasting

What with a house renovation (which I admit, has made me mildly obsessed with pinterest) and three boys to cook for and clean up after, you might think I could be forgiven for passing up on the chance to rough and tumble with them on the mattress in the living room (the mattress that is passing for our bed). But my eldest put it succinctly: 'Mum, why are you wasting your time not playing with us?' Point taken.