Oh God! The LGBB has a friend over today. They're playing shops.
And I learned two new things today:
1. Check old handbag before giving to the LGBB as a play thing because, guaranteed, you'll forget a hidden zipped compartment and she'll find it. The day her friend is here. And they'll come to you asking what "these" are, holding a mini lip liner, the sample perfume that you've been looking for since your last office job 8 years ago, some Mylanta tablets (because you left said job when you were pregnant and had horrible heartburn you'd tried to forget) and, oh yeah... four "just in case" tampons.
You can explain the rest - Mylanta are lollies for sore tummies, perfume is to make you smell purdy on your wrists and lippy, well... I needn't explain. But the little blighters, they really wanna know what those tampons are for. So you reach for the easiest explanation that comes to mind. And you hear yourself say as convincingly as you can, "Those are for your ears."
Cue: Confused looks from the two riveted five year-olds who want more information.
"So that you can't hear," you say. And for good measure, you stick one in each ear... "like this" and you proceed to demonstrate by partially inserting tampons in your ears.
They are suitably satisfied and you are free to go. Good save, you think proudly.
But then.... another lesson:
2. You need to remember to choose your timing and your words carefully.
You all come home and your first stop is the bathroom, where someone has obviously done an "urgent wee" before leaving the house earlier and did not clean up the floor or the toilet seat. So you call your child to the bathroom to ask calmly whether this mess was made by them. "No" is the perturbed response. "Hmmm... must have been someone else then," you muse, not pleased but unable to accuse her definitively. She's free to go. You get cleaning. And then you hear her loudly repeating the story to her friend and you wonder whether she will in turn take the story home to her mother: "Mum had a wee accident on the floor near the toilet."
So K, if you hear it from your daughter, I just want to reiterate: Nooo! It wasn't me who had the toilee accident! But I did stick tampons in my ears. That's a true story. If she ever comes to you asking to play with your ear plugs, this'll be why. Sorry. I thought that was better than explaining periods......
Got any pearls of wisdom arising out of your weekend that you'd like to share?
