Happy Mummy's Day

The little arms curled their way around my neck and seconds later I felt the excited puff of his breath in my ear before he plonked the mother of all kisses on my cheek.  "Happy mummy's day" he chattered excitedly into my ear as he bounced on the bed beside me.  I opened one eye to see the Dude beaming from ear to ear.  It seemed the obligatory mother's day lie-in was to be sacrificed at the altar of the Dude's excitement.  I opened both eyes and spotted La-la sitting on the other side of the bed looking on sympathetically.

The Dude has been looking forward to Mummy's Day for the past two weeks and has been reassuring me constantly that he will be doing all my jobs!  "I will be Mummy for the day," he proudly announced this morning and the first order of the day was to don one of my tops which looked like a dress on him so he was instantly in touch with his feminine side.

The second order of the day was to make a list of all the things mummy does in a day.  The Dude entered into this exercise with what can only be described as the enthusiasm of the innocent, much the same way as a new mum-to-be thinks her life is going to be the exact same post-baby except for afterwards she's just going to have her very own little bundle of love in it.

The Dude - Ready To Take On
The Mother's Day Challenge

So the Dude found a pen and a piece of paper and proceeded to write what he thought was going to be a very short list.  He very quickly realised it was going to take more than one piece of paper!

Here's the list:

Make Breakfast.  Include chocolate milk for me and La-la and don't forget the prebiotics.
Clean up after breakfast.
Empty dishwasher.
Pick up clothes off the floor.
Put on a washing machine.
Take clothes off clothes-horse.
Fold clothes
Put clothes away.
Take clothes out of washing machine.
Hang clothes.
Satisfy random demands for food.
Break up fighting.
Settle arguments.
Deal with whingeing.
Find lost items of clothing.
Put together a superhero outfit.
Trawl google for colouring pages.
Print colouring pages.
Figure out what's wrong with the printer and then print out colouring pages.
Fight zombies - try best to head off the zombie apocalypse.
Make up a game that everyone wants to play.
Deal with unwanted creepy crawlies.
Send text regarding playdate.
Find the random lost toy that must be found immediately or else the world is going to end!
Go to park.
Keep everyone alive and know where everyone is every thirty seconds.
Deal with injuries.
Clean up the sitting-room.
Go shopping.
Put the shopping away.
Pick up random crap off the floor.
Feed the dog - don't forget her medicine.
Walk the dog.
Don't forget to bring bag for the doo-doo.
Pick up the doo-doo - euuwwwww!
Put doo-doo in bin - after carrying it for a mile or two.
Find the scissors.
Say a prayer for the scissors because they have obviously followed all the other scissors into the big black hole where scissors go and are never seen again.
Figure out how you are going to do the task you needed the scissors for - without the scissors.
Clean, wash and prepare vegetables for dinner.
Cook dinner.
Set the table.
Clear the table.
Wipe the table.
Empty the dishwasher  - again!
Fill the dishwasher and put on - again!
Put rubbish out in the bin.
Do the recycling.
Get uniforms ready for school.
Find shoes.
Make sure ice packs, lunch boxes and schoolbags are ready for morning.
Do reading.
Look for a movie or T.V. programme that everyone wants to watch - deal with all objections and demands diplomatically and with respect to everyone's wishes.
Give lots of kisses and cuddles throughout the day and make sure everyone feels loved and wanted.
Get ready for bed.
Do water bottles.
Supervise bedtime routine.
Kiss and cuddle for bedtime and deal with any troubles, concerns or worries.
Sleep.

At about page two he asked if he could stop now because that was enough really.  At this stage we had only just hung up the washing!  I explained that we really needed to carry on as there were a few other things that needed to go on the list - he looked quite dismayed.  Out of kindness I decided to leave out the following: check emails for school related stuff, pay bills and oh yeah - write 1000 words and put a blog post together.

So far he has managed to clear the table and go shopping with Big Daddy.  In the dog's best interests I decided to feed her and administer her medicine.  I'm not holding out much hope for her walk.

The "I need to walk" look

Amazingly, the Dude hasn't felt the need for a colouring page so far today and has foregone his usual superhero transformation.  Also, no toys have been lost and we have not had a zombie invasion.  It's all just as well really because as the Dude himself observed, "how would you get all that mummy stuff done in ONE day!"  How indeed son, how indeed.

Pretty Soon I Think The Dude Is Going To Look Like This