“What’s wrong with you?” Tracey asked young Master8 earlier this week.
He was grumpy. He had his sad face on. He was short with everyone. He wasn’t dishing out the love.
The problem, it turned out, was a science experiment at school where the kids had to melt chocolate.
“That sounds like fun,” chipped in Tracey, earning herself a withering look from her son.
“It wasn’t! I didn’t get to melt chocolate because I have allergies.” The poor bugger is anaphylactic. Chocolate isn’t a problem at all, but if he has a peanut we all get to go to the local emergency rooms and be lectured for a few hours. We haven’t spoken to the teacher but I daresay the packaging the chocolate came in said ‘may contain peanuts’ or something similar. Despite what Master8 thought of the whole science experiment, I think his school (and teachers) do a fantastic job of keeping an eye out for him.
“You still got to watch everyone else’s experiment, didn’t you?” asked Tracey.
“I did my own experiment,” Master8 said in a way which didn’t make it sound like a good thing. So what was the school’s solution to this little scenario? “They made me melt butter!”
“Ahhh,” said Tracey sympathetically. Now we were getting to the root of the problem.
“And when it was done everyone got to lick the chocolate off their hands and I had butter on mine.”
There it is. Whereas each and every one of our other six children would happily sit down to a tub of Devondale and a spoon, Master8 doesn’t even have butter on his sandwiches. No chocolate and a butter substitute. A double dose of ‘nah nah nah-naah nah’ for the little bugger.
But if there’s one thing will make you feel better in these situations it’s someone else coping it even worse. Don’t look at me that way, you know it’s true.
Well, for Master8 that ‘ha, you’re worse off than me’ moment came tonight on the second most chocfull day of the year – Halloween.
When I arrived home from work the kids were all dressed up and ready to go Trick or Treating because we take EVERY excuse to dress up in this house. We’d prearranged to turn up at Grandma & Grandad’s and Nanny & Poppy’s – nowhere else. Just enough to make it fun and a good excuse to visit family.
Nanny heard the stampede of eager footsteps coming up to her front door. She immediately threw herself into a wicked witch, old hag role. She does it really well. It’s like she’s been practicing her whole life.
“Go away! Go on! Git! Get out of here!” she cackled loudly through the door.
The air filled with screams and the thumping of fleeing children down the stairs.
“Umm…,” said Poppy, looking out the window. “You might want to look at this.”
And she looked out the window just as we pulled into the driveway, watching a group of six or seven kids in costume – kids we’ve never seen before – running up the street.
Yep, Master8 thought this was pretty damn funny as he tucked into the chocolate those kids missed out on.
When not over here, Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his Big Family Little Income Facebook Page. Come join us 🙂
”Raising a family on little more than laughs.”
