living with Mary feckin Poppins

by

The chap I married is not a morning person. He takes exception every morning to having a five year old creeping into his room between five and seven and asking in a booming voice,

“Is it waking up time yet?”

He typically does a strong impression of a corpse at this point in order to not have to deal with said child. I can physically feel his body freeze into rigor mortis as the door handle starts to turn.

Now I have found ways to exact my revenge for his early morning reluctance to participate in family life. Once BB is up (around six) and firmly attached to my body nothing pleases me more to hear twin boy pad across the landing and five minutes later call,

“Can somebody wipe my bottom, its sloppy.”

I give he who helped create them an almighty prod of life and we go through the dramatic routine of him returning to the land of living and I humour him for a while whilst he pretends he doesn’t know why I have retrieved him from the pearly gates. Luckily I don’t need to explain much as twin boy’s repetitive chants from the bathroom tend to tell the back story.

But still no matter how much pleasure getting he who helped create them to go on arse wiping duty first thing gives me; it still means he starts the day with an upside down smile which tends to remain until at least three of us have left the marital home.

However this morning was a whole new story. He who helped create them has literally bounced into action.

Why?

We had a lie in….

We woke up first…

We slept until the grand time of 7.21.

And now I am living with the male equivalent of Mary feckin Poppins. I have tea in bed, he has played with the twins, he has thrown the baby in the air, he has laughed and joked as if we were in pre children days.

He is getting on my nerves…

42 thoughts on “living with Mary feckin Poppins”

  1. Ha ha! There’s clearly only one answer. Slip some gin into that perky tea he’s made you and fall into an alcoholic stupor whilst he deals with the ankle biters.

    Simples…

  2. Don’t you have a barter system?? Dan and I take turns in who gets the lie in but the fool always ends up giving me his in exchange for going out/me cooking his fave meal! So think of me tomorrow lying in bed having my bacon buttie (yes I have a rare weekend day off tomorrow) then think of Dan munching a Sunday Dinner!! Sing along now *lets go fly a kite*

    • You can go off people y’know….

      Also we tried the lie in thing but our jealously levels get too high so we yell really loudly instead in order to cause maximum disruption to sleeping other half…

  5. he sounds just like mine………there’s just no in between is there! How I love it when Jack sings ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy’ in the morning and I can give the sleeping lump a big prod and say ‘he’s calling you’…..and turn over & go back to sleep with a smile on my face 🙂

  6. Ohhh a lie-in (they do happen, they do happen 😀 😀 😀 sings a happy like chant whilst dancing around the room). Sorry to say I’m the one that lies there pretending that I haven’t heard the sounds from the other bedroom which usually include Hello Humpty and FARM!

  7. Great post Jane, made me smile, This sounds exactly like my house. Since Mr A has been on garden leave I have been driven mad by his Mary Poppins meets Supernanny approach to childcare, it’s very disconcerting. If he had a lie in that would probably turn him into the baby whisperer.

  8. I’ve noticed they’re very good at doing the ‘fun dad’ thing at the weekends but that’s because they don’t worry about doing all the other crappy housework stuff at the same time. Like you I’m always very pleased when bottom wiping and nappy changing duty are unavoidably foisted onto them.

  10. When my kids wake up at dawn (which is pretty much every morning) I prod my husband and tell him that I’ve been up all night with the kids, which is a big fat lie but it works!

  11. I loved this, so similar to the mornings in my house! Brilliant! A cannot wait for my lie in to see if it has the same effect on the man xx

  12. Classic! Although I’m not sure Phil would be quite so accommodating if the girls ever slept in (I think they did once, about a year ago but we were both so surprised we were awake anyway).

  14. Don’t knock it! Mine is useless in the morning too.

    At least twin boy asks if its waking up time, mine screams from his room “I waking up now” at all hours of the night. Needless to say anything pre-6.30am gets a firm “no you’re not”

  17. This is so funny! My OH does the ‘corpse’ thing too. Finally DD now sleeps/plays in room til 8 on wkends. This is utter UTTER heaven. But Corpse is still zombified till at least 10.30!

    • and you allow this?

      I would stand outside the bedroom door with the children playing hungry hippo’s and allow the children to cheat and therefore infruitate each other until they both explode in crossness and lose it…

      if that dont shift him I dont know what will!

      • Oh don’t get me wrong! He’s upright and in charge of small person. But that doesn’t mean his brain is switched on, or that he is capable of facial expressions! But maybe I’ll leave hungry hippos out next weekend…

        • try it and come back to me.

          the other thing is to bring him a nice refreshing glass of water to kick start the day and then trip as you hand it to him?

          That should get his juices flowing and get a wake up call! x

  18. I have to nudge my OH even on my night off, he goes completely deaf when the baby cries. Very worrying condition. Is it wrong I am imagining Mr Jane with a long skirt, tights and a big black umbrella?

  19. Good grief, I can see our future in this. Not the Mary Poppins transformation though. My husband is just not good at waking up – at all regardless of the time. It means that I sometimes can’t be bothered to wake him to do a nappy change because it takes him so long to go from grumpy zombie to something that vaguely resembles a human father.

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