I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable being at home when the Brothers are. I sense - perhaps incorrectly, of course - that they think I am avoiding their company. Guilty conscience, maybe? The truth is that I have had very little by way of time to myself since the kids were born. If the telly is on at home during the day, it's not because I'm lying on the sofa watching rubbish TV, it's because I've left Babe2 in the company of Mr Tumble while I try and hoover or clean or cook or put the washing machine on. When he's not at pre-school I take him places, tots groups and the like, because he's reached that age where he demands the company of peers. This means we're not actually at home together very much - generally out in the mornings, and then after lunch and before school pick-up is when I usually get things done. I tend, at those times, to be feeling a bit tired and not very chatty and somewhat pressured by my to-do list.
During the hours he is at pre-school, I want to do at least a few things for myself. I've listed some of them in a previous post. But I've been giving a fair bit of this time to doing things like taking the brothers to the job centre, to language institutions and to glaziers and the like, to ask if they have work. And I've been researching jobs online. I don't really want to spend much more of this precious time being chatty. I like my own space and I'm also quite noise-sensitive and can't stand talking over a telly that is on full blast.
The honest truth is that I'm starting to dread coming home and finding them sitting in the front room with an expectation of me keeping them company. An even more honest truth would be that I put the key in the lock hoping it will turn which means they're out. I feel really mean saying that. I am only too aware that they don't have anywhere much to go or anything much left to say to one another. But frankly, nor do I. At least not when there are other things I would rather be doing.
I have, in moments of calm, tried to pursue conversations. But in the back of my mind is a pause button that doesn't want them to feel too comfortable, too much like they're welcome here or too much like I want my evenings and weekends given over to them. I don't want a constant need for communication with members of OH's family to be the shape of my life moving forward. Whatever patterns become established here and now may be expected to continue when they bring their nearest and dearest to join them, if things gets that far. I know this is neither a generous nor a hospitable approach. I know I am not being as warm or as welcoming as I could be. How bad should I feel about this? I am one long osscilation between acute guilt and acute stress and irritation.
Last night, having been round here since about midday, the brothers left the house soon after OH got home from work because he said he wanted to go to the gym before eating. (And they had an appointment with Mr Khan to look at their telly but he didn't show.) I put the kids into bed and tidied around. I had literally sat down on the sofa, thinking that OH and I might spend a few minutes in one another's company, when the brothers got back so that they could eat with him. Inevitably, he now has two adults instead of one looking forward to spending time with him in the evening. As well as me (sort of). And the kids.
When I got home this afternoon, after staying out a bit longer than usual because I was feeling tired and particularly uncommunicative - heaven help us when my PMT kicks in in a week or so - I sat down to ask how they are and they said they wanted to talk about Babe. DBrother then went on to say that Babe had hit him over the head with a light-saber yesterday evening when I went to his parents' meeting. It hadn't hurt at the time but when he laid down earlier today for a rest it had started bleeding and his head was throbbing. They went on to say that Babe is 'poli ziliaros' - that's Greek for 'a very jealous type' and had pushed Babe2 really hard when they were playing together. To round off, they said that 'we need to sort him out.'
AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
This made me see red on so many fronts, it was as much as I could do not to just start shouting random lexical items at the walls. In fact, I think they were trying to raise this as a 'family issue' that could be discussed and acted upon 'as a family'. I think they might have been looking for a bonding opportunity.
The problem is that every effing day since they arrived here the brothers have laughed whenever the boys jump towards them or slap their bottoms. They have allowed the boys to playfight with them in a way that I do not usually allow. I understand that this is, in part, because of a desire to bond that has to overcome language limitations, but we do have shedloads of toys and games lying around the place that they could quite easily pick up and use to interact with the kids. This playfighting has escalated into them allowing the boys to throw the cushions around the sitting room, charge into them with weapons, and jump excitedly between the coffee table and the sofas. And I have, on a number of occasions, made it really clear that I do not allow this latter piece of activity, mostly because our fireplace is very old, very large and made from cast iron and I do not want them landing on it headfirst. And - if I must justify myself - our sitting room is the one room in our not very large house that I try to keep clean and up-together.
What aggravates me even more is that we did actually have a slightly heated exchange yesterday right before I went to the parents meeting, in which I begged the brothers once again not to let the boys jump onto the table. They claimed not to be able to stop them and I'm sorry to say that in response to this I put a teddy on the table, asked them to pay close attention, and then roared 'Stop!' at it at the top of my voice. They visibly shifted in their seats. 'Please, for their safety and yours, respond like that when they start climbing onto the table,' I requested. They could also, of course, just lift the boys off.
They are not wrong to judge that Babe can be a bit mean and rough with his younger brother. He also puts up with a lot of his younger brother wrecking his games and hurling himself at him. Overall, I think they get on pretty well with one another, and I feel that a certain amount of rough and tumble is par for the course. I parent them within reasonably clear boundaries and most of the time I think we manage pretty well. I know that I can have rose-tinted spectacles when it comes to my eldest offspring, but I think to describe him as a jealous type is a) just not accurate and b) even if he was, I'm not really into attaching labels to children that might stick. Yes, keeping them on the straight and narrow is a neverending job, especially when your partner is not always very supportive, but that's just parenting, isn't it? Do we need to sort him out? No we bloody well do not, thank you very much.
After huffing in and and out of the room a bit, I tried to be sensible and asked them how they expected me to respond to what they'd said. What did they want me to do? By this time tho' they could tell I was pretty annoyed and responded that they said they were 'just talking'. No doubt if I wasn't pretty much at my wits' end, I might have just been able to laugh off their observations instead of getting so wound up.
So what is this ramble, tonight, trying to say? I think I'm trying to say that despite fairly good efforts, I am doing a fairly crap job of hiding the fact that I am feeling the pressure of having them in my house an awful lot of the time. If I were still working it might not be having such an impact. (Hum, that's not true, is it?) And leading on from my blather of last night about tread mills, I think I am going to have to come up with a time-frame for them being here or there is a high risk that I will explode. A time-frame that OH will hate me for wanting to impose and do everything he can to resist. But I really don't think I can spend all that much longer having them effectively living here for most of each day.
If they get the papers for their construction cards sorted this weekend (the bloke who does the 'training' is now not answering his phone...!) there is an outside chance they could start some work next week. As long as the receipts are considered sufficient proof of competence, as the cards themselves could take up to a month to arrive. And as long as the foreman on the site OH is working on at the moment comes good. If they don't get work next week, I am not sure how they are going to pay for the next month's rental of their room which is due in about ten days' time.
I was going to ask what my cut-off for the current domestic arrangements should be? (All they need to do is get their TV working and start using their own kitchen and bathroom and I'd be feeling a lot less pressed.) The end of October? Christmas? But there is a fairly strong chance that within a fortnight I am going to be faced with the dilemma of whether I let them come back here to live or not. I know I can't. So what then?
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