The end of appeasement (From The Northern Echo)

The end of appeasement

11:22am Thursday 12th January 2012 in Mum At Large By Ruth Campbell

WITH the in-laws gone, the two older boys returning to university and the younger three back at school this week, it looks as if life may, at last, return to normal once again.

For the past two weeks, it has felt as if we have been living in the middle of a war zone. Thanks to the arrival of two of the latest, must-have toy guns, we have been dodging foam bullets and laser beams indoors.

The only respite has been when the older boys are squabbling with the younger ones over whose turn it is to take charge of the weapons.

At the same time, we have been busy swatting away two remote control helicopters which have been buzzing around our heads. Thank goodness Granny managed to take one of them out when it got caught in her hair.

And then there are the electronic bugs, another must-have toy craze, which are crawling all over the carpets.

The simple act of walking from one side of the room to the other was beginning to feel like an SAS assault course challenge.

To add to the feeling of war-torn Beirut or Afghanistan, there have been bodies sprawled all over the house. Sometimes it is just our older teens. Sometimes it is friends they have invited to stay. Either way, they lie most of the time, motionless, on sofas and floors, emitting the odd grunt or groan as you step over them.

And then, when it’s just our boys at home, big and small, from aged nine to 20, they love to play “pile up”

where they all pile on top of each other in a huge heap on the floor.

“It’ll all end in tears,” I’d say, and I’m usually proved right.

I’d say the same thing when they started play fighting, rolling about on the floor, and I’m right again. I’d wonder, if I’d had girls, would they all be quietly playing with Barbie dolls and doing each other’s hair and make-up?

But, because it is Christmas and New Year and we are trying to host the perfect family festive gathering, we smile indulgently.

We have managed to remain calm and smiling throughout potentially explosive disagreements over everything from what we watch on telly and sharing the remote control to whose turn it is to help with the clearing up and who is going to drive on New Year’s Eve.

But the pressure to maintain this idyllically harmonious family Christmas, where the expectation is that everything, from the entertainment and the food to the decorations and carefully selected presents, must be flawless can be immense.

Which is possibly why, once the Christmas decorations were down, the tree was taken out and we allowed ourselves to relax, all hell broke loose. It started because my husband couldn’t find his calculator, which was obviously all my fault.

He shouted at me. I shouted at him. The row escalated. We both let rip. Talk about a war zone. Of course, it wasn’t just about the calculator now, but all the other little simmering resentments that had built up over the weeks while we were busy displaying our frozen rictus grins and having the model family Christmas.

But then 12-year-old Roscoe and nine-year-old Albert appeared at the bedroom door. “Stop it,” they said, visibly upset. Of course they had heard it all. We shouldn’t have done it. I felt ashamed. “Grown-ups have fights just like children,” I told them later. “And sometimes, when we’re angry, we say things we don’t mean.”

Still, at least the shooting had stopped, the bugs had been put away and the helicopter was no longer hovering overhead.

But then, on Sunday night, just as we were getting everything ready for going back to school on Monday, Roscoe and Albert were on the computer, working out just how many months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds it is until next Christmas.

“I can’t wait,” said Albert. And I know what he means. I’m beginning to miss the noise, the chaos, the bodies.

Even the foam bullets.

Oh, what a lovely war.