Two more eventful things

As this blog entry suggests, two more things of note have happened. Gosh. It all makes my life appear rather exciting.

The first was yesterday, and involved Babe’s first real bolt for freedom. It was my turn to cook – hang on a minute, who am I trying to kid that we take turns? – and, would you believe, I was doing aubergine again. Honestly, I was. But I’d forgotten to remove the grill pan from the oven and it didn’t take long for the burning remnants of fish-finger coating to fill our kitchen and small house with a burning smell.

Other Half was in the sitting room with Babe, watching more Euro 2008 football. SIGH.
‘I’m opening the front door for five minutes,’ I said. ‘Because I’ve burnt something and the house smells.’ You may remember from a previous blog entry that Other Half has almost no sense of smell. Which is his excuse, by the way, for rarely realising that Babe’s nappy is pooey.

Other Half looked at me and then carried on watching TV. Babe looked up from his train set and then carried on playing. I went back into the kitchen and carried on reading my book and sipping wine. Oops! Slaving over a hot stove, I mean.

Ten minutes later, Other Half storms in, shouting.
‘Why have you left the front door open? Look where he is! Are you mad?’
I look past him, down the corridor, towards the front door. Babe is on the second step, a mere toddle or two from the pavement and the World At Large. He looks at me in the same knowing way he had when he looked up from his trainset, and I realise that he had listened and understood where his father had not.

I feel shocked but decide not to over-react.
‘You'd better fetch him in then,’ I say mildly.
‘What were you thinking, you *** *****?’ he responds angrily.

‘Look!’ I reply. ‘I told you I was opening the door. All you had to do was watch him and keep him safe for five minutes.’

‘I didn’t know you were leaving it open!’ he replies. ‘You should never leave the doors open when Babe is in the house!’

‘But, you ***** ********,’ I say, losing my rag, ‘I told you I was opening it.’
‘But I didn’t know what you meant. And I didn’t hear you,’ he shouts.

‘That is total crap!’ I retort. ‘This is yet another instance of you ignoring what I say, so that I feel forced to repeat myself incessantly, so that you can then accuse me of nagging and blathering on, so that you can then justify only listening when you want to. It’s sexist effing crap and I’ve had enough of it.’

I slam the kitchen door and gather the aubergine into a bowl. For thirty seconds I intend to slop it down the toilet.

‘And your bloody aubergine is going down the toilet,’ I yell through the kitchen window into the garden, where he and Babe are now playing football.

‘You should not leave doors open,’ he yells back.

‘Communist demon-blockhead!’ I scream.

I return to the bowl and consider launching it into the garden and onto his head. But instead I spoon it back into the pan and then add some extra coriander on top. I feel sorry that all he’s had to eat for the last two days has been ‘rabbit food’ and fish fingers and wish that, despite my desire to be a career woman, I could feed my family well. I feel that perhaps I don’t do anything very well. But more of that another time.

***

The other thing that happened was actually probably not exciting enough to detail here. It involved Other Half leaving a sleeping Babe in the car in Tesco’s car park while he came to help me carry back the shopping. I thought this rash and a bit rich after the door episode. But have expressed my feelings on the matter several times now and am pretty sure Other Half has heard and realises it was a mistake.
‘You should not leave doors open,’ he repeats in a muted monotone response. Which I think is man-talk for, ‘You’re right.’