Do you think it's normal to hide from your children?
I only ask because that's what I've been trying to do all day.
In Summer I tend to hide from my children by going as far down the end of the garden as I can. I can still hear them there, but we have a pretty long garden so the sound from the house is quite muffled, particularly if I stick my fingers in my ears and sing 'la la la' very loudly.
Being at the end of the garden does have its disadvantages though. It does leave me vulnerable to encountering next door's children over the fence. Not that there's anything wrong with next door's children, it's just that at those times when you don't want to be with your own children, you generally don't want to be with anyone else's either.
The greenhouse provides a fairly good hiding place too and I can be there under whatever greenfingered pretence I might like to make up. A little too hot in Summer (I can last about 8 minutes at a push), but Spring time just after I've painted the glass with white sloppy 'shading' is the perfect time for me to hide there. At this time of year it's no good though. The glass has been cleaned of all shading and any pretence of being 'busy' inside the greenhouse is quickly revealed (as is my hand stuffing a large chocolate bar into my mouth - darn!).
[This has reminded me though to see if I can squeeze a comfy chair into the greenhouse in preparation for later in the year - I might even get to read a little while I'm hiding in there]
The toilet - sorry Bathroom - is a desperate 'last measure' place for me to hide. One of the pluses - probably it's only one - is that it has a lock. On the downside it has a door. Now I hear you ask, why should this be a downside? Well unfortunately there is an alarm attached to the bathroom door. This alarm triggers a signal in my children's brains just as soon as that door is closed. Perhaps it completes some kind of electrical circuit the moment the metal slotty thing slots into the thing that it slots into [don't you just hate it when your knowledge of door vocabulary lets you down?]. Perhaps it interrupts whatever thoughts are going through my children's heads at the time with a sudden 'need'. Anyway, however it works it seems that everytime I close the bathroom door then the calls start.
'Mum! Mum! Where's my...'
'Mummy, he did this to me...'
'Mum! Can you help me with...'
'Mummy! Where are you?!'
Grrr.
The day in my life when I finally accepted that I was never again ever EVER going to be able to have a pee without an audience was a very bleak day indeed. Alas, the entry into true Motherhood and the slippery slope down towards losing the need for a hairbrush and the sight of my feet.
So where did I hide today?
Well not in the garden (too darn cold).
Not the greenhouse (too revealing - I needed to eat chocolate and lots of it).
And definitely NOT the bathroom (for the reasons stated before).
I hid in the loft.
Yes I know that's the sort of things that dodgy fugitives do (apparently, though I don't have firsthand experience of this), but it seemed the best available option today.
Of course I had lots of excuses - I mean reasons - to be up there. The loft is in dire need of a clearout and as I had mountains of wool (from the Scrapstore) to sort out and store, it was a perfect opportunity to hulk it all up there and do some - well - sorting. And yes I did do some sorting. But I also ate chocolate and found all sorts of things to sidetrack me from actually doing anything very useful. And although I could hear the children bickering - in a muffled through 2 floors sort of way- the fact that I wasn't actually next to them while they were bickering was almost restful.
I only ask because that's what I've been trying to do all day.
In Summer I tend to hide from my children by going as far down the end of the garden as I can. I can still hear them there, but we have a pretty long garden so the sound from the house is quite muffled, particularly if I stick my fingers in my ears and sing 'la la la' very loudly.
Being at the end of the garden does have its disadvantages though. It does leave me vulnerable to encountering next door's children over the fence. Not that there's anything wrong with next door's children, it's just that at those times when you don't want to be with your own children, you generally don't want to be with anyone else's either.
The greenhouse provides a fairly good hiding place too and I can be there under whatever greenfingered pretence I might like to make up. A little too hot in Summer (I can last about 8 minutes at a push), but Spring time just after I've painted the glass with white sloppy 'shading' is the perfect time for me to hide there. At this time of year it's no good though. The glass has been cleaned of all shading and any pretence of being 'busy' inside the greenhouse is quickly revealed (as is my hand stuffing a large chocolate bar into my mouth - darn!).
[This has reminded me though to see if I can squeeze a comfy chair into the greenhouse in preparation for later in the year - I might even get to read a little while I'm hiding in there]
The toilet - sorry Bathroom - is a desperate 'last measure' place for me to hide. One of the pluses - probably it's only one - is that it has a lock. On the downside it has a door. Now I hear you ask, why should this be a downside? Well unfortunately there is an alarm attached to the bathroom door. This alarm triggers a signal in my children's brains just as soon as that door is closed. Perhaps it completes some kind of electrical circuit the moment the metal slotty thing slots into the thing that it slots into [don't you just hate it when your knowledge of door vocabulary lets you down?]. Perhaps it interrupts whatever thoughts are going through my children's heads at the time with a sudden 'need'. Anyway, however it works it seems that everytime I close the bathroom door then the calls start.
'Mum! Mum! Where's my...'
'Mummy, he did this to me...'
'Mum! Can you help me with...'
'Mummy! Where are you?!'
Grrr.
The day in my life when I finally accepted that I was never again ever EVER going to be able to have a pee without an audience was a very bleak day indeed. Alas, the entry into true Motherhood and the slippery slope down towards losing the need for a hairbrush and the sight of my feet.
So where did I hide today?
Well not in the garden (too darn cold).
Not the greenhouse (too revealing - I needed to eat chocolate and lots of it).
And definitely NOT the bathroom (for the reasons stated before).
I hid in the loft.
Yes I know that's the sort of things that dodgy fugitives do (apparently, though I don't have firsthand experience of this), but it seemed the best available option today.
Of course I had lots of excuses - I mean reasons - to be up there. The loft is in dire need of a clearout and as I had mountains of wool (from the Scrapstore) to sort out and store, it was a perfect opportunity to hulk it all up there and do some - well - sorting. And yes I did do some sorting. But I also ate chocolate and found all sorts of things to sidetrack me from actually doing anything very useful. And although I could hear the children bickering - in a muffled through 2 floors sort of way- the fact that I wasn't actually next to them while they were bickering was almost restful.
[Ha! Bet they wont find me in here!]
So, with my 'busyness' I managed to while away the morning sorting (or not) and enjoying a relatively peaceful few hours. I even discovered several knitting projects - blankets, half-finished jumper arms, weird knitted oddities - from previous years which I proceded to unpick and wind into wobbly balls of wool. A few of the projects I didn't actually recognise as being mine, so it's quite possible that I spent the morning unpicking someone else's knitting? Even more therapeutic.
One can never have too much wool you know...
1 comment:
Excellent post, I was chuckling to myself as I read it, nodding in agreement in so many places.
You need a shed all to yourself! I am hatching a cunning plan to get one for myself, on the pretense it's needed to store stuff ;-)
CJ x
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