Bedroom Secrets

Well, the netball was great fun last night, but despite an excellent start and a thrillingly close match, England lost 40 – 47 to Australia.

Disappointing though it was, there was no ripping up of seats at the venue, and no fighting or smashing of car windows on the way back to the station. Just lots of excited girls (young and old) holding hands, waving flags and singing.

Of course, as a result of the late night, I had to drag my daughter out of her bed this morning. It took me about ten minutes to find her under the pile of assorted soft toys, cushions, random strips of material and hair accessories. It looked like ‘'Tracey Emin - The Early Years'.

I noticed that she also had Action Man’s evil nemesis Dr X in there. Not the clean cut hero Action Man whom you would introduce to your parents, but the thuggish bald-biker-lookalike Dr X. Her attraction to a character that has his own weapon of mass destruction for a left arm is a little disconcerting, but I’m sure this is a mere taste of the greater horrors to come.

A quick look in the boys’ bedrooms shows that the gender gap is alive and well, and as wide as ever, even in the under-tens.

One son appears to be nesting, judging by the scraps of torn comic, inserts from video-game covers and the odd Top Trump card. The other has neither soft toys nor books in his bed, just large quantities of grit.

Friday night means Cheap Fizz night, and tonight I am drinking a Marques de Monistrol Rosé cava once again (£6.49 Oddbins). Its quite dry, with a slightly bitter finish reminiscent of burnt currants (I’m not doing a very good sales job here, I know).

It’s rather sad in some ways, but we have been trying to encourage the kids to stay out of our bed, now that they are getting older. This has been driven more by embarrassment on my part, than anything else. One morning last week, my son climbed in next to me for a cuddle. I don’t wish to reveal too many bedroom secrets, but he had the misfortune to lie on the evidence of our marital bliss (i.e. the damp patch) - an unusual situation for a male of any age.

‘Oh Mummy’ he said, with disappointment in his voice, rather than disgust, ‘You’ve wet the bed!’

It shows what a coward I am that I just admitted it, and said rather meekly that I would try not to do it again.

Hear, hear!

I took my son (not the grunting one) for a hearing test at the local hospital today. Of course, this meant dragging all three kids along with me. A couple of years ago, a visit like this would have caused teeth-clenching levels of stress, but courtesy of the electronic stun-guns known as Nintendo DS consoles, it all went very smoothly. Instead of them running around the crowded waiting room, or chewing on the grimy one-armed dolly from the toy basket, they had to be roused back into consciousness when my son’s name was called.
Before I had kids I had hardly ever stepped inside a hospital. After three pregnancies, involving excessive levels of medical poking and prodding, I have now got to the stage where every time I see someone in a white coat, I take my knickers off (always causes a bit of a stir at the butcher’s shop).
Anyway, with underwear intact, I explained to the nice doctor that we were here because my son’s teacher had expressed a small concern about his hearing, so I thought we had better get it checked. When he asked if I personally thought my son couldn’t hear properly, I had to restrain my initial response about ‘selective male hearing’, since I doubt he would have been impressed. Instead, I mumbled something about it being impossible to tell in our house, since everyone shouted all the time – he wasn’t impressed with that either.
Thankfully, my son’s hearing turned out to be fine after all, so I am popping the cork off a Marques de Monistrol Rosé Cava (£6.49 Ocado) by way of celebration. Its not at all bad for a cheap fizz, and its pink too! I will make a note to tell his teacher next term that there definitely isn’t anything wrong with his hearing – obviously she just isn’t shouting loudly enough.