All hell was breaking loose downstairs.
My Englishman is a mild mannered Clark Kent character, who rarely raises his voice, but I could hear him, very clearly, so he must have been speaking loudly. As for the Dark Princess she was screaming the words, like a banshee.
And it was all about the pork!
“Why can’t I just have the pork?”
“Because there’s two meals there, we can use them for tea tonight. Dinner’s half done then. Have some cheese in your sandwiches.”
“But I don’t LIKE cheese!” (News to me, eavesdropping on the stairs)
“I just want the pork”
“How many siblings do you have?”
Bewildered look. You mean there’s other people in the house who need packed lunches?
“Three. Um no two. I just want the pork! I DONT WANT CHEESE! Stop making fun of me!”
I put in my 3p.
“Why don’t you slice the pork and share it amongst all four of you.”
I am clearly dying. I’m barking like a seal with bronchitis and it’s only seven o’clock in the morning! I cough, cough, cough into the coffee machine. It’s hot as I cough it up and singe my nostril hairs.
Meanwhile the immovable object has met the immeasurable force. Or some such cliché. I couldn’t remember the cliché as I was too busy trying to think through how I was going to explain my burnt nose to the doctor, and fending off youngest daughter who had thrown herself slavishly into my arms exclaiming;
“I love you Mummy! Thank you for sponsoring me and my athletics today. I love you Daddy and I love cheese.”
“Stop being sycophantic” I say too sharply.
“What’s sycophantic?” everyone asks at once.
“Greasing” says the Englishman. “And thanks a lot,” he says as a grumpy aside to me. “I thought we were going to stick together?”
“ I just think we should use the leftover pork to slice between the lunches and I’ll get something else for dinner,” I try to explain.
He’s not happy, and I understand why. I’ve let the unit down. (My Englishman’s good with military analogies) Dark Princess is puce, and she’s crying and indignant. She does not want cheese in her boring sandwiches. She wants the old days when we weren’t so tight on grocery budget. She does not want to consider other people; not her Mum who has to go out in the cold with the dodgy chest to get more food, not her siblings who are her mortal enemies when it comes to provisions, especially not her Stepfather.
This is not great behaviour on her part. I know she’s really tired and jet lagged. I’m trying to cut her some slack and soothe the situation. I’m not winning. I long for the old days too – when she was a troublesome toddler and I could just remove her from the situation and put her in Time Out. She’s almost taller than me now. Dark Princess opens the fridge and scornfully mutters ;
“Why is it so empty anyway?”
Uh Oh. She’s started waving the red flag and the bull in the room charges……
There’s much angry discussion about how easy it is to parent when you only parent for four weeks out of 52. How easy it is to provide lavish dinners out and theme park trips and all the food you can eat, when you’re not providing for your children. DP cries. Stepfather looks unhappy as I cry angrily. Son and littlest daughter choose sides. I stand in the middle trying to catch the ball that’s flying to and fro above my head, and failing miserably.
Piggy in the middle.
I want to support my Englishman. I know how hard it is providing for a half grown family. I know that there’s a stark difference between his careful North Yorkshire upbringing and my kids’ more consumerist old lifestyle in New Zealand. I feel guilty that I haven’t stood by my man and supported his point of view. I feel guilty that my kids are so demanding. I feel guilty that my ex doesn’t pay what he should, that I’m not earning what I should, that I have three kids, and whilst I’m at it that I haven’t done the housework, or finished the website, or cleaned the fridge out or a million and one other things! But most of all, I feel guilty that I didn’t buy enough toppings for lunches … oh and yes, that I can’t stop coughing.
But then Dark Princess though being a brat is tired and she’s so damned dramatic (like her mother) She’s only 13 soon to be 14 which is prime time for selfish teenage behaviour, isn’t it?
Then I feel guilty that she might like her father’s place better where there’s the equivalent of a cow in the back yard, all the cheese and pork you could want and a veritable goose who lays the golden egg! I feel guilty that she might feel that I’m not being a good mother (a low blow that gets me every time!)
The dog starts barking for her breakfast, and the cat jumps onto the bench to locate her bowl, and the littlest daughter keeps hugging everyone and saying ‘I love you’. (She’ll be a great hippie in a few years time). I take a slug of Ventolin which inspires yet more coughing.
Son comes downstairs and tries to calm the situation. He’s tall and serious now, at almost 16 years old. He takes the cheese sandwiches to keep the peace, and slopes back upstairs to locate his other shoe, his tie, his head (which fell off whilst sleeping). He has this incredible ability to float through space and the time continuum. It’s a flexible understanding of time that his school doesn’t endorse. He only visits this planet occasionally. I slump onto the couch in guilty tears.
Where is that bloody manual for step-parenting teenagers?
I’m not good at being Piggy In the Middle. I just want everyone to be happy and like Capt Kirk on the Enterprise, I try to make it so! The Englishman sadly heads off to work, littlest daughter plonks herself down in front of Cartoon Network (dressed in short sleeved school shirt, beanies, scarf and fingerless mittens. (I know not why!) What of the Dark Princess?
She walks out, with the pork. All of it. (You loose).
NB/ Post inspired by real events. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. Written as part of Josie’s Writing Workshop prompts. Though not a cartoon character, I do feel like there should be a Piggy in the Middle cartoon character.
