I bought you a bok choi

Andrea is...kidded out
Today was a day of people and people bringing us things...including children.

This morning Rachel and I went to Reddell’s beach, accompanied by three children (Oscar along with his friend Holden and his sister Bila) two dogs and another lady (who brought us the bok choi). Casey (the ‘Broome bitsa’ dog that’s staying with us) is completely obsessive compulsive when it comes to her damn ball, so I am now quite happy that Amos just runs off and keeps himself amused chasing flies, birds and the kids.

Getting home from the beach, Rachel needed to quickly drop something into town and asked me to stay with the kids. Are you sure you want to leave them with me??? Holden who is 6 and prefers encyclopedias to children’s books, gave me a look which showed he knew I was scared and didn’t know what to do. I hate it when they can detect this! Yet this second bout of babysitting in less than 24 hours fortunately went without incident.

By the time Rachel got back I was exhausted so I headed to my room for a nap. The kids soon moved their games from the garden to the hall outside my door, so I gave up. No sooner than this, someone else walks through the door, carrying a huge chunk of fish – part of his prized catch from kayak fishing that morning. Turns out his wife and kids are in the car, so they all come in, taking kid population to 5.

Unable to cope, I escaped to the shops. Arriving home after an hour or so, I find fisherman Ben has left his daughter Tully behind and that now a whole bunch of people are coming over for a fish dinner. Exhausted and out of Pepsi, I am not too excited by this prospect. I am also dreading it because the kids have been playing hard together all day with few tears or tantrums, so the worst’s yet to come.

In the end there were 7 kids between the ages of 5 months and 6 years and 9 adults. The amazing thing is that all but I were fed with half of one of the huge mackerels Ben had caught! Aside from the beard, I don’t think Ben is much like Jesus…but perhaps I’m wrong. Ben is one of the DJs on the ABC breaky show, and from Tuesday I will be talking weather with him live. I made sure we didn’t talk about any embarrassing incidents or disasters, just in case he decides to bring that up when weather talk gets boring.

Amazingly there were no tantrums or hissy fits, even as the children were told it was time to leave. I actually found them pretty bearable, but only because there were enough parents around for me to not have to deal with arguments, injuries, complaints and unruly behaviour. So I could just ignore them, sit back, chat and enjoy my beer.

But I am still kidded out! And both dogs are exhausted too.