232. A relaxing weekend (1)
It was the weekend. A proper weekend for once. which meant that:
a) the au-pair girl had arrived and was on hand
b) my husband had put his BlackBerry away in a safe place because I had threatened to throw it in the pool.
'You two are grounded. I’ve had enough. We will go to the dinosaur park and you will stay here with Rachel.’
The tears and the stamping of the feet I was expecting did not come. It came as a surprise as the kids had been talking about this outing for over a week. Now that we had agreed to take them they did not seem to care anymore. I had four kids by now, the eldest being ten and still their functioning remained a mystery to me.
a) the au-pair girl had arrived and was on hand
b) my husband had put his BlackBerry away in a safe place because I had threatened to throw it in the pool.
The sun was of course shining and everyone was relaxed; truly on weekend mode. Well, expect our two eldest girls who never had a respite; they bickered at breakfast and continued arguing through the morning until lunchtime when my husband had said:
'You two are grounded. I’ve had enough. We will go to the dinosaur park and you will stay here with Rachel.’
The tears and the stamping of the feet I was expecting did not come. It came as a surprise as the kids had been talking about this outing for over a week. Now that we had agreed to take them they did not seem to care anymore. I had four kids by now, the eldest being ten and still their functioning remained a mystery to me.
‘Did you hear what daddy said? You two are staying here all afternoon.’
They looked at me in a we-are-sorry-mummy way but made no attempt at making us change our minds. In fact the au-pair girl seemed to be the most disappointed of the three. Could a trip to an indoor exhibition park to see fake dinosaurs with mechanical jaws that moved up and down as pre-recorded screams blasted out to scare the crowds really be of interest to a grown-up person? To me it sounded hellish and I thought about offering her my ticket but my duty as a wife dictated otherwise. After all an outing without the naughty bickering girls should be delightful. We could talk to each other and talk to the two youngest without being interrupted. That would be relaxing for us all.
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We arrived early and in this country nobody did early so there were no queues to get into the shopping mall. We walked out of the almost empty car park and along empty alleys amongst equally empty shops. Our two youngest children - the well-behaved ones - started to run ahead of us, chasing each other. We were watching them, grinning widely, happy to see them chasing each other, commenting on how good it was for them to have an empty mall to themselves. Oh and how right we had been to punish the naughty girls. They would definitely learn an important lesson today.
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