…  Being Home Alone

Mrs Dr Brown has gone on holiday.

I am therefore nominally in charge of my two children for five whole days.

That’s 120 hours.

Or 7,200 minutes.

I know that because after the first few I drew myself an 84 x 84 tick chart to count them down.

You’d think it would be easy.  But I’m not sure I’m necessarily the best influence on my children.

Recently, while trying to cross a busy road, I selected a spot downstream of a couple of pensioners and heard myself use the phrase “Quickly children!  Use the old ladies as a human shield!”

And it’s not even as if my family are all that bad. 

No worse than your own, I’m sure. 

But let me show you something.

You might have heard about “hygge” – the Scandinavian quality of cosiness and comfort, away from the hustle and bustle, enjoying life’s small pleasures together with loved ones.

Now imagine an evening with the Browns.

Perhaps you can picture me as a big cuddly bear.

Now think of the girl as like relaxing in a hot bubble bath.

And maybe imagine the boy as like wearing your comfiest socks and toasting your feet in front of the fire.

Now try and see the three of us together. 

In a confined space.

Unsupervised.

Sort of like an electric fire, in a bath, with a grizzly bear.

So we had to get out of the house.

I thought about a big day out, to impress them while mummy’s away.  So I looked online at a local theme park. 

I gave them a call.

“The website said to call in advance to avoid disappointment?”

“Really?  Well then – in order to avoid disappointment: the roller coaster is much slower than you’d think, and photographed from a deceptively low angle so it seems much taller in the pictures.  The Fun House isn’t, and The Merry-Go-Round doesn’t.  The hot dogs are overpriced, the log flume is like a guillotine for toddlers’ fingers and our safety record is a shambles.”

“Gosh.  That really does help to avoid disappointment.  I think I’ll give it a miss.”

“Very wise, Sir.”

So, back to the drawing board. 

The Ikea drawing board with the permanent felt tips that I kept in the room with the lightest coloured carpet until The Incident.

The problem is, the girl won’t do any outdoor activity, while the boy gets bored stuck in. Unless it’s a sunny day in which case the girl wants to go out and sunbathe, and the boy comes in complaining that it’s too hot.

Conversely, the girl doesn’t have the attention span to watch a film while the boy is rattling through the Harry Potter series for the second time this half term.

And while the boy won’t eat spicy food, the girl… well, the girl is thirteen and goes to private school so she just doesn’t bloody eat these days.

We needed a system. Thankfully, DrBrownIsGettingBetter.com loves a system.

In this case specifically

cA Ո ΣA (a(A+B+C) ≠ a(D))

Whereby chosen activity A is a subset of all those Activities which are acceptable to family members A, B and C while also being unacceptable to family member D.

Thus:

If the boy is at cub camp the rest of us can go for a curry. 

If the girl is at a sleepover, the remaining three can watch a movie.

QED

All we have to do is make sure we do all the things that Mrs Dr Brown doesn’t like or won’t normally let us.

And to work out what that is, all I have to do is think back to what I used to do before I had the good influence of the magnificent Mrs Dr B; a woman so splendid that Professor Richard Dawkins doesn’t believe in her.

Which is why, after tonight’s tea which comprised of a bag of twelve jam donuts (for main course) once the sugar rush has worn off, they’re having an early night.  Because we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, of drinking banana Yazoo, eating McVities’ pink wafers while watching the Simpsons in our pyjamas.

Footnote: I asked the children for ideas of things to do while mummy’s on holiday and the girl said “make a mess” or “swapping the water in the taps for yogurt.”

The boy excelled himself and wrote a list.

1. Get a dog
2. Go on a better holiday
3. Convert the cellar into a ball pool
4. Get the plague
5. Get stuck up the chimney
6. Let dad grow a goatee
7. buy canoes
8. recreate cool roadrunner cartoon moments.

I’m very proud!