Okay, so the fish for dinner is more important than my children…

Well, what else can I think? Yes, another post about my poor mother. Golly Whiskers, I hope I am not like her when I grow up and become a Grandma! And this story has eight witnesses, six of which are under the age of three, but never mind. Here goes.

I had a few people over, kind of like an impromptu playgroup, one afternoon. We enjoyed a few refreshments together and the six children had ice cream. The resulting mess on my kitchen floor was quite spectacular and I knew I would have to mop. Just as the ladies and gents were about to leave, the front door opened and my mother walked in.

“Hi, darling! I have that park bench that needs assembling and I brought one for you to have as well. Would you help me drag it out of the car?”

Of course I helped her with the bench and came back into the house as everyone was about to leave. The mommies had done a great job in helping me tidy and load the dishwasher, but the floor was my own thing to deal with; we all knew it. I mean, ya just can’t mop a floor with children around. Any attempt would have just spread the ice cream infested mud more evenly over the entire kitchen and then nothing would have been clean.

So, I asked my mother, “Would you be so kind as to keep an eye on the boys in the tub for ten minutes? That way I can mop the floor without them and it can dry while I bathe them. Just getting tubby time started would help me out big time.”

She says, “I would if I could, but I must get back to the office and I need to stop at the fish shop before it closes. Bye!”

Off she went, leaving me to figure it out. What I actually did was put one baby in the tub with the water on a slow trickle to amuse him and the drain open. I also put a towel on the floor because I knew he would dump a lot of water over the side unless there was someone around to stop him. The other baby wanted to be held, so I quickly mopped the floor with the baby on my hip and checked on the destruction in the bathroom a few times during the process. I knew the baby in the bath would be okay on his own because I took the stopper out of the drain completely so the water couldn’t accumulate even a tiny bit. Mopping whilst holding a wriggling toddler...talk about making a chore a chore…

And my friends got to see how in my family, the fish comes first.