Mother of a Man-Child

Happy New Year to all my readers.  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  Well the Griswold Family have just returned from a great short holiday in Sydney.  We did all the tourist icons with the kids – Harbour Bridge, Opera House, The Rocks, Darling Harbour, Westfield Eye Tower, Bondi Beach, Manly Beach and Luna Park amongst others.  There’s no doubt being a tourist is hard work – it’s quite an exhausting holiday, but satisfying nevertheless.

Highlights for the Men-Children included doing the bridge climb (highly recommended) and jet-boating on the harbour, and for Sister of a Man-Child it was a photo with Maxy, one of the famous Bondi Rescue surf life savers, Luna Park, and seeing the NYE fireworks over the Harbour Bridge.  Much to the boys’ disappointment their plans for NYE didn’t quite work out as they hoped (they tried trust me), so they spent the night with us and our friends.  It wasn’t all bad as we were harbour-side to watch the Sydney fireworks and it’s not every year you get the chance to do that.  And we did buy them some alcohol so they could share in the festivities (Jim Beam & Cola being their drink of choice – Yuk!).  I have no doubt that will be the last NYE they will ever spend with us – and eventually just like us they will realise it’s a highly over rated night.

Having returned home, we’re all still in holiday mode and planning further escapes during January.  They boys have invitations to go beach-side with friends, and more sport camps so that should keep them occupied until school returns.  When an opportunity came up for a couple of weekends away with Sister of a Man-Child we both jumped at it.  One of the weekends was cleverly co-ordinated to coincide with the boys’ absence.  However, only at the last minute did we realise that heading away this weekend meant leaving the boys home alone.  And we hadn’t really thought about organising an alternative.

A couple of thoughts sprang to mind about how we might approach our absence:

• Don’t tell them until the last minute, so they can’t plan anything.  (Or maybe don’t mention it at all and see if they call us to find out where we are – a bit of role reversal?)
• Tell the neighbours to keep an eye on them and let us know if an impromptu party of 200 teenagers eventuates.
• Threaten death if anything happens to the house.
• Tell them we’ll be home on Saturday night (when it’s really Sunday night).
• Ask the aunties to do drive-bys (do you think every hour is overkill?)
• Panic!

The latter happened when I chatted to my twin sister and we both recalled the first time our parents left us at home for a weekend and “trusted us to do the right thing”.  Well, you can guess what happened can’t you?  Within 2 minutes of them leaving the house, we were on the phone to our mates organising a party.  And a great party it was, followed naturally by us cleaning the house to within an inch of its life.  A sure giveaway don’t you think?

Of course we got sprung – nothing to do with the stench of smoke and alcohol that I am sure permeated the entire house, or the motorbike divets left on the front lawn by someone’s boyfriend (I seem to recall his name was “Moose”).  My father (“hawk-eye”) wondered who had moved the fridge?  For God’s sake, who would have thought?  Naturally it wasn’t something we noticed was it? We blamed Moose – a mammoth of a man, and the only one big enough to do it!   I can’t recall the exact punishment metered out for this particular crime; there were quite a few over our teenage years.  We were probably grounded for a year or two, or perhaps it was the time when our invitation to go skiing with the neighbours to babysit their daughter was declined, much to our immense disappointment (and just quietly to our parents relief I suspect).

So as I post this, we will be on the road to our weekend away, and the boys will be “free” for the weekend.   If you should happen to see anything on Facebook about a party at our place, please let me know urgently (they’re not my friends on FB remember). 🙂