Boys

I’ve been having to deal with my attitude towards housework, and Nick and housework, as I’m becoming terribly sinful in my thoughts! I hate the fact that I have to clean this huge house by myself, but have to remind myself that Nick is employed full-time and is very busy, so can’t really help me, and also, it is my responsibility. I have to do it cheerfully! He does look after the outside, and does regularly set mousetraps in the pantry and remove the dead mice in the morning, for which I’m grateful. There was another one this morning. I hate seeing the poor things dead, but worse is having half a packet of maries nibbled away, and a corner chewed out the rice packet, and icing sugar being delved into, and the list goes on. My next painting project is to cover up the government green skirtings and stairway, handrails etc. I bought a small tin of white enamel paint, and have started masking taping the necessary bits. I will likely paint on Saturday when Nick can keep the boys out of the way. It’s going to take a long time because there are so many fiddly bits.

I had to renew my medical insurance policy, so that’s another £99 down the drain for the next three months. I suppose if I actually need it we’ll be very grateful for it. I also had a small shopping victory in that I found three pairs of 100% cotton socks for Nick. These I found at the fourth shop I tried, the others only stocking cotton mix socks, or children’s socks (did you see the pun in there?) The boys were squabbling over who got to hold the socks, so the kind lady in the shop split up the three-pair pack, and put two pairs in one packet and one pair in the other, so both boys got to give Nick a packet of socks. During Aaron’s sleep, Caleb and I worked on some words, so now he can read about 20 words, and only struggles with “the”, which I recall also battling with when I was learning to read, aged 5 ½ or 6. He’s doing really well, I’m so pleased to see that he’s remembering more and more letters and words. After that he wrote his name, and then coloured in no less than 8 pictures in a colouring book. He worked very hard. When Aaron came down, he also did a bit, but he likes to rather just colour in, very intensely, over the eyes of whatever the picture is, or he’ll pick the smallest dot on the page and colour that in. For some reason he really likes small stuff. On Monday night when we were playing Scrabble at Guy and Emma, he came out of the room where the kids were watching Robots, to fetch Niamh’s doll because he felt that it was getting cold, then he gave it a toy bottle, and then gave it to me for safekeeping. He’s such a funny little boy, very tender and loves babies of any sort. On the other hand, he’s also very boy, loves guns and fighting and crashes and cars!

This evening I did some weeding after supper while the boys sucked water from the hosepipe and spat it at one another. They also did a bit of weeding, which means poking a screwdriver at the weeds until the leaves fall off, then throwing the leaves into the nearby bucket of water. I know you’ll laugh at that because it’s quite a funny description, but in fact it’s rather annoying! Although I am laughing too as I type this. Caleb prayed such a lovely prayer at bedtime tonight, something like “please help us not to do naughty stuff, but you still love us even if we do naughty things.” A lot of the teaching really sticks. Tonight I was telling them how we must do things that God tells us even when it’s difficult, like coming to St Helena was difficult but we did anyway. So Caleb says that sometimes he gets sad because we came here. So I told him that it’s nice being here because his nose doesn’t run anymore, and he and Aaron have this lovely big house to run around in. Caleb’s reply? “We may not run in houses because we’ll bump into the glass doors.” All this while Aaron was sitting on the other side of the table playing with a tape measure…pull it out, let it run back in, pull it out, let it run back in, pull it out…you get it. He is still stuck on the Ark of the Covenant, although we’re into the New Testament now with devotions…his prayers often revolve around the box, and that Jesus mustn’t splash blood on it. What a mixed up theology.

Nick is at a deacon’s meeting tonight, but should be home within the hour. He almost couldn’t get there, because the golf is running on petrol fumes, and I didn’t realize when I went out today otherwise I would have filled up. Sorry for you if you forget petrol, because the filling station runs with normal shopping hours – closed on Wednesday afternoons, and closes at about 5 pm every other days, except Sundays when it’s not open at all.

Aaron always sleeps well. He usually wakes up before Caleb, and comes quietly through (I’ve taught him to be quiet in the mornings so as not to wake Caleb), to say that he loves me too (or 2), grins at me, then goes back to his room and lies on his bed or looks at a book. I suspect he watches Caleb quite closely, because I’m certain that the minute he opens his eyes, it’s playtime for Aaron. His companion is awake, what better thing than to speak to him! New fun games, apart from “camp-camp-man-man-man” is to drag duvets to the passage outside their room, and camp out there during the day, which also lends itself to banging their feet either on the steel cabinet doors, or the wall of our room which is strangely made of wobbly metal.