belgianwaffle

Mr. Waffle

No better man


Posted in: Mr. Waffle

My husband is a saint. On Thursday afternoon the childminder was sick, he stepped into the breach and picked up the children from school and minded them (the disadvantage of being self-employed is that you tend to be more available for domestic crises than your office bound spouse). While he was at it, he left in the man from the cable company who fixed our television (he also rang them and stayed on hold for hours to get this service). On Thursday night, a friend of mine came to stay the night. I met her in town and we went for dinner while Mr. Waffle continued to tame children at home. When we got back about midnight I discovered that he had tidied the house within an inch of its life. I slightly undermined the effectiveness of this by exclaiming to my friend in tones of awe: “It’s so tidy, I can’t believe it.” Due to the absence of a spare room in our lives (sigh), my friend was sleeping in the Princess’s room. Mr. Waffle had blown up an air mattress, upended the Princess’s bed to make room for it and even put out towels and fresh soap in the bathroom. I nearly died of happiness.

I had thought that my friend was leaving on Friday but discovered that she was leaving on Saturday and staying at a nasty airport hotel on Friday night. I felt that our air mattress was bound to be better and offered it to her. She accepted. Unfortunately, on Friday night I had a work reception followed by a concert for which my sister had already purchased tickets (the Coronas, alright, since you ask). So on Friday, my saintly husband picked up the children from school (as it was closing early), minded them from 12 to 2 (the disadvantage of being self-employed again), then left them in the care of the child minder. He returned home at 6.30, fed the children, put them to bed, tidied the house and then fed and entertained my friend.

Did I mention that every week day morning he gets up at 7 to make sandwiches for the children for school?

How lucky am I?

Cross-cultural confusion


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

Michael: Christmas is Jesus’s birthday.
Me: Yes, that’s right.
Michael begins to cry.
Me: What’s wrong?
Michael: That means Jesus gets all the presents.
Me: No, no, the baby Jesus loves us all so much that he wants all the children to have presents.
Princess: And Santa delivers the presents with help from his brother Saint Nicolas and his sister the Befana.

What it is like being married to the most organised man in the world


Posted in: Mr. Waffle

From: Loving Husband
To: Me (safe in the fastness of my office)
Subject: various

Have bought smiley face presents (for all three) and put in the Waterstone’s bag. Also cards (on windowsill) and paper (in dresser under stereo). Have also put car seats into Zafira – key is hanging up. Fed cat at lunch time – she may be hitting the wall as regards roast beef.

B

Pretty good, eh?

Domestic felicity


Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle

I don’t work on Wednesday afternoons. Today, I picked the children up from school. Brought them home. Made them change their uniforms. Got herself to do her homework, played trains with the boys. Then while the Princess doodled, the boys and I made ginger biscuits (from Delia, recommended for making with small children, also very tasty) which were just ready as Mr. Waffle dropped in at 5 between various work engagements. While he had his tea and still warm biscuits, I put on dinner. He rushed out to be productive and I looked after the children until he came home at 11.15. I greeted him with great anxiety as the internet connection was down and I am not going to give up NaBloPoMo at this point. He unplugged and restarted various devices several times and to my mixed delight and chagrin, this approach worked. This post may be sub-standard but I had to get it out against a deadline. I feel like some kind of 1950s superwoman/new millenium internet nerd hybrid.

A new twist to a classic tale


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins

Princess: What’s “The King and I” about?
Mr. Waffle: A woman goes to Siam (explanation that this is now Thailand, eye-rolling in the back of the car from herself) to be governess to the king’s daughter.
Me (feeling that this is an important plot point): And the King’s wife, the Princess’s mother, is dead.
Daniel: I don’t want my Mummy to die.
Me: Mummies almost never die. Don’t worry. It’s very unusual.
Princess (impatiently): What happens?
Me: They fall in love.
Her: The king’s daughter and the governess?

Ms. Willpower’s Evening or My Husband is a Lark and I am an Owl


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Reading etc.

6.30: Arrive home.
7.00: Eat
7.30 – 9.30: Wrangle children into bed.
9.30: Decide not to turn on computer. I will talk to husband or watch television or read my excellent book. Do so.
10.00: Help husband deck the house with laundry. Have my efforts rejected as “laundry does not dry in a bundle”. Mutter darkly about the joy of owning a (very bad for the environment) dryer.
10.15: Husband goes to bed. I tell him I will be up in a minute as I want to read my book in bed.
10.16: Slip over to the computer for a quick look. Cat hops up on my lap with contented purr.
10.17: Stare dolefully at yesterday’s blog post which has received no comments (yes, this remark is addressed to YOU).
10.18: Draft some deathless prose. Post it.
10.35: Trot off to bloglines where I find 630 new posts.
11.30: Still here, reading away, eyesight going, fingers freezing (heat has gone off, haven’t bothered to turn it on again as I will be going to bed in 5 minutes).
11.40: Decide to skip reading the full feed from the Huffington Post, wonder why I ever subscribed. Nearly at the end now. Hurrah.
12.00: OK midnight, I’m definitely going to bed now. Definitely, definitely. Just going to comment on a couple of posts.
12.30: Oh God, oh God, it’s really late, I must go to bed. I’ll be exhausted tomorrow.
12.45: Just going to have a quick look at my sitemeter and then I’m going to bed, definitely, definitely. Look at those readers in China, I wonder how they got here? Oh right, they were searching for wafflemakers. Did anyone look at those links I put in, let’s just quickly check the outclicks.
1.00: Oh God, it’s one in the morning. I must go to bed. I must. I must. Just going to quickly check how does this feedburner/twitter [insert technology of choice here] thing works.
1.15: Too baffling. OK, now I’m definitely going to bed. Just a quick check on the email and then I am definitely going to bed.
1.30: OK, delete the junk mail, tum ti tum. Send a couple of quick mails.
1.45: Maybe just check back to see whether anyone has commented on my deathless prose. Maybe, maybe, but no, oh wait, 45 spam comments. Delete same.
1.50: Just one quick last look at bloglines.
2.10: OK, that’s it. I am definitely going to bed now. Dislodge cat. Try to warm frozen fingers.
2.15: Just going to have a quick read of my book in the bathroom while I wash my teeth and floss.
2.30: God, this book is really good, why did I play on the computer all evening when I could have been reading this?
2.45: Move to sitting on the stairs. No, I’m going to stop reading. I’ll just fill a hot water bottle for myself as I am now frozen to the bone. Filch tepid bottle from daughter’s bed. Go downstairs book in hand and fill bottle up from the kettle. Back upstairs, book in hand.
3.00: Will sit for just one moment on the stairs with delightfully warm bottle toasting my perished extremities. This book is really excellent. If I go to bed now and don’t get up until 8 I will still have five hours sleep which is lots, Margaret Thatcher survived on four (though, of course, that explains why she was so cranky).
3.45: Finish book. Put child on the toilet. Crawl into bed. Husband says blearily “what time is it?” Am frozen. Get up again to refill hot water bottle. Back to bed to instant and dreamless sleep.
5.30: Husband cannot sleep. He tosses and turns and eventually gets up. I say blearily “what time is it?” He goes downstairs to put on a wash and do some work.
6.00: Some child crawls into bed beside me. I swear that tonight I will go to bed early. This can, in fact, be achieved. I say to my husband “help me, stay here and make me turn off the computer”. And he does and then I am tucked up and lights off by 11.