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Halloween preparations
We’ve gone Halloween-tastic. I’ve been feeling that the half term has been a bit of a washout as work has been busy and, in any event, nobody likes doing the same things so it takes until around 7pm for anyone to agree on what they want to do.
On Thursday came one of those moments that make you feel you are getting something right as a parent, even though they are nothing whatsoever to do with you. Daughter three and only son bonded over decorating their room for Halloween. The room is now a feast of pumpkins and bats and spiders. They’ve drawn pictures of zombies and the like and stuck them all over the walls. And they were having fun. There was music playing and no-one was complaining about anyone being excessively annoying.
Only son has been upping his pleas to sleep in our bed of late. We’ve negotiated him down to a one day on one day off rota, with whole weekends in his own bed. He is, however, a master at plea bargaining. “I’m pretty sure I was not in your bed last night, mum,” he said the other night when all evidence – assorted teddy bears in the middle section of our bed [the bears come too] – pointed to the contrary.
On Thursday he tried another tactic. “I’ve drawn a picture of a fly for the spider’s web on the wall, mum. It is sooo realistic that it is already giving me nightmares. Can I sleep in your bed?” Hmmm.
Only son has what you might call an overactive imagination. He can’t go anywhere near darkness without being accompanied. So it was probably not a good idea that he caught a bit of Titanic the other day, one of daughter two’s all-time favourite films. The girls explained the history to him and said only rich people could afford to go on Titanic.
We were driving to drop off daughter one for work the other day and only son remarked: “I hope you don’t get too rich through your work because then you might have to go on Titanic 2.” Daughter one, who is working as a waitress in a cafe, assured him that she was unlikely to get very rich in the next few months or possibly ever. Only son breathed a sigh of relief.
*Mum on the run is Mandy Garner, editor of Workingmums.co.uk.
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