You know me. I'm never going to win any 'Mother of the Year' awards but the other day I surpassed myself.
I was getting the boy ready for school and he was quite reluctant to clean his teeth, wash his face, have a wee, get dressed, generally do anything he was being told to do. You know the usual morning drill.
He just stood there in the bathroom looking grumpy.
'Don't be angry honey.' I said in soothing tones 'You need to blow the angry away'
I must explain that 'blowing the angry away' is a concept in a cartoon on CBeebies called 'Bing'.
Bing is a large and annoying bunny who seems to have no gasp of basic grammar and who I once told the boy I'd like to put in a pie because he annoys me so much. This of course amused the boy greatly and now he insists on watching Bing Bunny on the I-Player just to wind me up.
'You want to put him in a pie don't you mummy?'
'Yes I do darling.'
'With the Chipmunks, don't you Mummy?'
Oh don't get me started on the Chipmunks.
So anyway back to the story.... I suggested to the boy he blow his angry away and let it all out.
'I don't want to blow my angry away. I want to stay angry forever' the boy declared with a red face and a stamp of the foot.
Time was ticking by, we were both still in our PJ's and nowhere near ready to leave for school. In desperation I came up with the following bit of inspired nonsense,
'You can't stay angry forever. If you don't let the angry out it's got nowhere to go and..... poo shoots out of your nose.'
Yep ladies and gentlemen, I was that desperate I went with a poo gag.
The boy started laughing,
'It doesn't.'
He was smiling and starting to get ready so I ran with it.
'Yeah it does. If you don't blow the angry away then poo will definitely come out of your nose.'
'Really?'
'Oh yeah that's well known that. And you can't have poo shooting out of your nose all over the place.'
The boy was really giggling now. He'd laughed his angry away and was getting ready for school quite happily.
It might not be orthodox but it worked for us. We were chuckling all the way to the school gates and as the boy walked down the corridor I could see him shaking his head and muttering 'Poo. Out of your nose. Outrageous.'
Job done. Now if I could just get some pastry round that bloody rabbit I'd be laughing too.
