Haranguing the Hot Tub Goodbye

It has been Half Term. I love Half Term. It is wonderful to be oblivious to the time, and not chase about as I do, like a blithering idiot during the craziness of term-time frolics.
There is only one problem with Half Term that I can see. And that is the way that the Four Little Seymours seem to need at least a week of muddling along in the same place as each other before they realise they don’t, in fact, have to growl and screech if a sibling brushes past them in the hall way. It takes a good six days before they work out that life is not one great competition about who said what first, who is going to “be” Pinky Pie on the cartoon they’re watching or who loves the dead rabbit the most.
We seem to have peaks and troughs where they hate each other and are doing their utmost to aggravate whoever is closest by being as bloody-minded as is humanly possible. But then, calm descends, and they disappear off to play an amazing school-based game together, or craft Barbie furniture out of the recycling pile.

These arguments, though, were not foreseen on my part, when I dreamed of having children. I have a brother (Uncle Bacon Nose, if you remember), and I hated him sometimes. He was so very annoying. I think I may have even pushed him in a pond at one point. But I did care about him. Even if we didn’t always get on.
But there were only two of us. We had space to get away from each other. And, except at the meal table when we would play the age-old game of Who Gets To Put Their Feet On The Middle Bar Of The Dinner Table And Kick The Marrow Out Of The Other Sibling’s Shins, we’d pretty much tolerate each other somewhat successfully.
The Four Little Seymours are, some might say, at a disadvantage. Not only are there so very many of them, but they are having to get along without the sanctuary of their own bedrooms, and only one toilet. They’re fine – as I’ve said before, they’re not living in war-torn Syria, or homeless. But let’s just say that the luxury of their own space will come in very handy one day. There is only so much treasure pilfering that Little Seymour Number Two can take before she’s going to chuck someone off her bunk.

It’s mainly Boy Seymour, to be fair.
He’s a conundrum, really. Calm, considerate and gentle one moment, and a raving lunatic the next. When he’s in a silly mood, he can be found semi-naked and in heels, chasing his sisters up and down the length of the house whilst making dire screeching, screamy noises and laughing maniacally. He can’t hear anything anyone is saying to him at that point, and will not heed the warnings that soon, he’ll be contemplating his actions on his bed and wailing at his unfair plight.
And that’s when Mini Seymour will lurk about, waiting for her opportunity to go into the room he’s been sent to (which is also her bedroom) and gurn at him provocatively.

It’s easier in the summer, of course. When the garden is not a swamp of wet, slippery mud, I can send them down to the trampoline to burn their energy off, in assorted groups depending on who hates whom at the time.
I do it in the winter, too. But the Four Little Seymours tend not to stay down there long enough. Except when, on Monday of Half Term, the weather was really warm, and I discovered that Little Seymour Number One had opened a cafe on the decking, and was serving hot and cold drinks to the others for two hours on the trot. That was nice. Until Boy Seymour came in for the kettle with the intention of carrying it full and hot down the garden, whilst also hijacking the raw spaghetti tin to serve with the drinks. Inexplicably, they love that stuff.

On Saturday morning, some nice men came to take our hot tub away. Big Seymour had finally decided that it was in the way, and we weren’t using it enough, so onto Ebay it went.
We spent Friday night emptying, cleaning and moving it in readiness for the off. It was a bit sad, but the time had come for it to depart.
The men arrived as planned, and were just enjoying a cup of tea in the kitchen with Big Seymour whilst I was trying to sort out yet another argument in the living room next door. For some reason, even though our sofa is large, and the television is more than adequate in size and can be seen from all spots on said sofa, they ALWAYS argue about who sits where. It does my head in.
So, rather bewildered by the continuance of this argument, since it has gone on all week, I tried to suggest that it didn’t matter who sat where. Boy Seymour started to become very agitated, he was turning puce and spit bubbles began to fly from his mouth. He was incensed that Little Seymour Number One had dared to sit in a spot he had briefly vacated to fidget, and he was being decidedly unreasonable.
I did not want to indulge him and thus encourage him in his creation of an hierarchical Sofa Seating Plan, so I was not going to let him have his way.
At this point, he almost burst with indignation, and began to yell.
I didn’t really know what to do. His behaviour was so odd. But, bearing in mind we had visitors – strangers no less, I pulled him close to me, and told him, in no uncertain terms, to quieten down.
Or at least, that was my intention.
I had him near to me. I was speaking calmly, but loud and firm. I thought my words through before I said them. I did not rush. But still, by some unseen power, and despite my apparent control ,the word that came out of my mouth directly after “shut the” and before “up” was “fuck”.
Yep. I told my child to shut the fuck up within earshot of complete strangers.
I released Boy Seymour, and sat there for a moment, not quite believing what I had just done. I don’t say that to my children! Not even when I’m alone! Yet here I was, doing it in public. And loudly.
Now, I do swear, don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing so satisfying as a swear word to vent your feelings. And sometimes, however articulate one might be, a well-placed cuss is just the ticket.
I love reading those blogs where swear words are commonplace. They make me chuckle, when combined with clever writing and excellent comic timing. I’m rather impressed at the writers’ bravery and lack of shame.
I’m not standing on any moral high ground, though, when I say that in my written voice, that’s just not me. FML is an acronym I’m just not willing to use, in case the Fates are tempted to throw stuff my way to show me how very ungrateful I am. I’m a bit superstitious, I suppose. So please excuse my blatant and rare use of the word “fuck” in this piece, but there is no other way to fully describe the situation, and to appreciate the horror I felt after using that word in an instruction aimed directly at my son.
After a few awkward minutes during which the Four Little Seymours gawped at me in united and sanctimonious disbelief, I left them and braved the kitchen. Style it out, I thought. Let them see that I’m not Waynetta. Despite the evidence.

Bless those men. The one closest to the living room was, conveniently for me, being communicated with in a form of Makaton, and so would have been unlikely to have experienced my verbal mishap. As for the other two – even if they had heard me (about which there is no doubt) they didn’t appear to judge. We made polite conversation about education and schooling, and I proffered apologies for the building site they were encountering. My misdemeanor went unmentioned.

The Four Little Seymours’ half term has now come to an end, and, by and large, we had a good time.
I spent the right ratio of time vacillating between feeling truly grateful for the week off, and being ever so glad that school exists. But I am sure that I swore more last week than usual, culminating in the Grand Finale performance as the dear old hot tub left our lives for good. Maybe I was overcome with emotion? Or perhaps, I have late-onset Tourette’s Syndrome?
Or possibly, this whole Living On A Building Site lark is just wearing thin.
:-/