A Fair Warning

I've been thinking about Nikki coming over and what it's going to like having another person in the flat. This afternoon J was trying to iron a shirt in the kitchen while I was organising Toby and Rosie's dinners. It was a mix between ballet, slapstick and a contortionist act as we weaved and leaned around each other, talked over each other and made sure that no one was burned by the iron or scalded with hot water.

I feel that there are a few things that I should warn Nikki about before she arrives. I hope it doesn't scare her off.

1. We wake up early. Sometimes very early. I'm talking 4.30am on occasion. And there's no slowly waking up and gently starting the day. Tobes usually tries to flip out of bed a la Sportacus and Rosie likes to start the day by eating within minutes of waking. She resorts to shouting and banging on the table if my speed at preparing her bottle does not meet approval. Our neighbors just love us.

2. We have a three year old boy in the house so you may from time to time, or possibly every day or even numerous times a day, find wee on the toilet seat. Or on the floor. Or maybe even on the magazine that you've left in the bathroom. Tobes does the best he can (foreskins are a nightmare) and apparently urine is a sterile body fluid so just wipe it off and try not to gross out too much.

3. Sometimes Tobes prefers to use his plastic potty rather than the toilet so you might just find a little potty somewhere in the flat containing wee or perhaps something a bit more hearty. Don't be shocked. Better in the potty than in his pants. Just let me know and I'll deal with it.

4. 4.00pm until the children's bedtime around 6.30pm is what I call Hell Time. It's that time of day when the children are getting tired but there are still things to do like eat dinner, take a bath and get ready for bed. This is the time of day when I'm at my most harried and the children are at their most demanding. Holding an intelligent conversation with me at this time of day is a real challenge. Once the children are in bed and I've dried off from their bath, cleaned the food out of my hair and sat down with a drink I'm back to normal. Most nights anyway.

I know there are at least a dozen other things I should warn Nikki about but it's almost midnight here and there's always a chance I could be getting up in four hours. Will have to think about it and write another day.