Like, seriously????

Harumph!!

This is the boys bin.

It lives outside their room.

It only moves when I bring it downstairs to empty it.

Yep!  Their bin yet I empty it, which is fine as they are only 6, 7 and 10.

But.

When I empty it and leave it in the middle of the stairs and they each step around it to get to their rooms and change out of their uniforms?  Well, it makes me smile.

They stepped over it on their way back down too.

I sent them up and down a couple of times to see what would happen, would they notice the bin.  

They didn't.  

I put it back up outside their room.  

SWINES.

Chugga chugga chooo chooooo

When the kids started back at school after their Christmas hols I decided that there would be no telly on in the house until 5.30 at the earliest.  

If they get their homework finished by 4 that means they have an hour and a half before they can turn on the box.  

It was meant to be fun.

It's not.

For me.

Okay, so they've rediscovered dozens of toys they had forgotten all about (which was kind've the plan at the start - tonnes of stuff and none of it looked at from one end of the year til the next).  Thing is, they all want to play with the one thing and they all have different ideas of how it should be played with.

# 3 got a trainset down from uptstairs (it was originally given to #1 by his nana and Paddy when he was one and a bit) and started to set it up.  Which of course meant that #s 1 and 2 had to jump on board, pardon the pun, and tell him what he was doing wrong and they then started to build their own bits of track.  Which meant there wasn't enough track for #3, who had brought it down in the first place.

So # 2 went upstairs and got the dinosaurs and decided that he would make a city out of building blogs and the dinosarus would pretend it was Tokyo and trash the place.  The Borrowed Boy liked this plan.

All hell broke out.  Two small boys and a box of dinosaurs kicking everything over and two slightly bigger boys threatening to batter them if they didn't stop.

So.

An hour and a half later everyone is watching the telly and it's up to me to dismantle Tokyo, retrieve the trains and track from behind the sofa and tidy it all away.  This no telly lark is hard work.  

Absolute favourite photo of the entire Brazilian trip 2011

Doesn't look much really, does it?  But to me it meant I was within 3 hours of seeing the boys.  I was finally going to get to see, smell, hold and look at them.  Hold them and see them.  

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, kept saying 'oh, you won't know yourself.  All that time without your kids'.  But, thing is, there is something different about being that far away and not having that much to do.  I've never had that much free time on my hands.  I went from relaxed to bored within hours.  I missed them.  Really missed them.  I missed Himself too.  The four of them ground me and make me feel happy and sane.  They chase the dragons away.

p.s. I didn't miss the kids because I'm used to being with them (you know who you are, you muppet).  I missed them because they're mine.  I missed them because they're smart and funny and gracious.  I .. . yeah, missed them.

Yesterday

Was insane.  Woke to find the day of the brother's wedding was finally here.  Woke to remember that this was the day my sister had to move house?!  Woke to a phone call asking 'er, any chance you could decorate the pub for the wedding?'  Muppet.  

A wedding planner is something my brother would make never make. He was out buying a shirt to go with his suit two hours before he said 'I do' or 'I will' or whatever it is you say these days..  He did, however, make a lovely groom and Isabella was beautiful, as always.

Pub looked alright too. 

Boys pulled their first pint of Guinness and . .  yeah, it was a great day.  If a little tiring.  Oh, and note to bride and groom . . . you should have stood still and let everyone get photos of you!!!

    

Dossing in sunshine

Zzzzzzzzzzzz.  Woke up to the sad news that Ireland are out of the Rugby World Cup.  Beaten by, damn it, Wales.  Fell back asleep again.  

Then up and dossing with nos. 2 and 3.  Scared the shit out of no. 2 by showing him a video where you're happily watching a car drive down a country road accompanied by soothing, lyric fm, type music, only to have a frickin' zombie leap in front of you screaming.  Myself, no. 1 and no. 3 jumped and laughed in a nervous way.  No. 2, today, covered his eyes and started howling.  (It's 10.34pm and he's in bed beside me!!)  Not a clever move.  So, to cheer him up, the two of us made soup.  Tomato soup and it's delicious.  Left the kitchen in tatters and legged it to meet two lovely pals for a quick (er, 3 hour coffee).  Nice to catch up.  Nice to be catching up in the sunshine.

Drove home, topless!!!  Obviously the car was topless not me, there would be far too many crashes if I were topless.  Can you imagine???? Evil cackle.

Got home, grabbed Himself and the kids and headed to St. Anne's Park where I finally saw the famous Rose Gardens and Billy nearly went demented with all the squirrels legging it all over the place.  Squirrel?!?!?!

Then, we stumbled across the perfect tree and I got to photo my 'family tree'.  Whatcha think?

Don't know if you've been here yet but you definitely should go!

Today we got up and raced to the Botanical Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin.  Raced because we were told Himself's replacement phone would be here.  Here at 2pm sharp and God forbid if he wasn't here to sign for it.  He was here at 2pm (sharp), shame the feckers didn't turn up til 3.30pm we could've stayed longer in the park.  

I haven't been to the botanical gardens in years.  Definitely not with kids so I'm guessing it's about 11 years or so since I was last there.  Can't for the life of me think why I waited so long to go back.  It was fabulous.  We had a ball.  

Okay, so we had to persuade # 1 to get into the car ("It'll be boring!!!") and the borrowed boy refused to go anywhere without Buzz.  Buzz who was somewhere in the house.  Somewhere.  Found Buzz and coerced #1 into going peacefully by promising to buy a bag of nuts to feed the squirrels you're not allowed to feed.  

One of the things that really struck me about today was how cheap a day out it was.  Firstly, car parking was only €2.00 regardless of how long you stayed in the park and secondly . . . entrance is free!!!!  Yup, gratis.  You also get a free puzzle sheet for the childer which involves you following numbered arrows and answering questions on the sheet.  You have to use your eyes and ears but when you bring the completed sheet back to the nice fella in the big house you get some seeds to plant when you get home.  Sunflowers in this instance.

The boys ran amok.  The borrowed boy really ran amok and bashed everyone he came across which resulted in him sitting on the edge of the path more than once to 'think about the people he was bashing'.  He'd sit and think and then get up and bash someone else  Thankfully it wasn't me so I'm happy enough.

The lads got to go through a rain forest, find all sorts of fruit trees, chase squirrels (bloody squirrels are obviously aware that they must not be fed by humans so legged it every time one of the lads legged it after them.  Mind you, maybe it was the chasing that frightened them off rather than the talking to they get off the park keepers every time they accost a visitor for nuts?!).  We fed ducks, ran, tumbled and then my lovely sis met us with some lovely news.  Also some lovely pics of the nearly newest member of the family.  I am so excited about this new bubba that it kinda freaked me out and I went a bit mentally protective of it.  ????  I don't know either so there's no point glaring at the screen.  All I know is I love this bump and can't wait to meet it properly.  As soon as she eventually collapses under the strain of knowing and blabs to everyone I can tell you what I'm going to be getting to be an auntie too.  

So.  Go to the botanical gardens and have a lovely day.  Don't feed the squirrels as they're not that bothered and instead bring bread for the ducks who are practically tap dancing to get the attention of passers by.  Go and have  a lovely day.  We did.