After the drama of the Lego men on Sunday, I was quite literally left to pick up the pieces. By Sunday evening Robbie had lovingly restored most of the Lego people to their original state but there was still a small jar of parts that required attention.
As soon as Robbie had been despatched to work, I settled down to solve the puzzle. Robbie had most of the body parts for the palace guard but it was the wrong head. So at 6.20 am I was looking at mug shots of Lego men on the computer trying to identify the 'wrong' head. Just before 7am I finally identified the head, it was the head of the man in the dinosaur suit. The dinosaur was not among the 'downstairs' Lego people and a quick trip to the bookcase to inspect the the 'upstairs' Lego men revealed that he wasn't there either. However the head of the palace guard had mysteriously reappeared, placed neatly in front of the top row of minifigures.
It didn't require a crystal ball to work out who was responsible. I woke my son and threatened him with cruel and unusual punishment if the dinosaur didn't reappear right now - it did!! It is easier to deal with my son when Robbie is not around because I don't have an echo. I explained to him that I understood that he may have thought it was funny at first, but it had upset Robbie and caused me untold grief so now it had to be put right without any more fuss. He went back to check his room but he came back empty handed saying that he was sure that there were no more 'hostages'.
I always have plenty to do before heading off to work, but on Monday as well as dealing with the food shopping and the laundry, I had to sort out the Lego men. Believe it or not I found a site that sells spare parts for Lego minifigures. I put in an order to replace a missing baseball bat, graduation certificate, and helmet and I bought some spare bases. I don't think my son was responsible for most of these things, they probably went up the hoover (over time not all together) but I am not going to tell Robbie that or he will hide the hoover!
I also catalogued every single figure and noted the accessories that it should have, so that in future Robbie can check them whenever the mood takes him. Now hopefully I can stop thinking about minifigures for a while otherwise I really might scream!! Just for once it would be nice to have an uneventful few days.
Thursday went past in a whirl of activity, I still had my usual jobs but I also had to catch up on all the jobs I had put off while I was getting ready for Laura's birthday. One job that simply couldn't be put off any longer was cleaning the hall carpet, but unfortunately I had far too much help. I started by hoovering which prompted Meg the dog to attack the hoover, each time I wanted to push the hoover forward there she was there to chase it back. Picking up an aerosol can had a magical effect, Meg vanished into the lounge to make herself invisible while Oreo streaked past me in the other direction. I sprayed the carpet with the carpet cleaner, and got down on my knees to work it into the carpet but as soon as I put the can down Oreo reappeared to attack the foam that was blocking his way to the kitchen and his food bowl. Meg didn't want to be outdone by a cat and decided that in the absence of her favourite fox poo, this foam would be good to roll in, so I had to work the foam in with one hand while waving the aerosol can in the other to scare away the animals! Fortunately the end result was good, I had to leave it to dry and then hoover it again and it looked much better, so perhaps the exorbitant price for the product was justified after all.
Robbie is totally frustrated by the restricted train timetable between Northampton and Rugby. He was out of sorts by Wednesday and positively evil by Thursday morning. He ranted and raved because he claimed that I hadn't ironed any shirts for him, I had, there were at least five ironed shirts but I had forgotten to look into my crystal ball and predict what he would want to wear on Thursday. After a meaningful exchange of views his ironing privileges were withdrawn and I threatened to starch his underwear if he continued to annoy me.
Friday is the only chance that Robbie and I have to spend a weekday evening together, so I was less than amused when Robbie didn't get back to Northampton until 8.30pm! I wouldn't have minded quite so much if I had known before I cooked his meal but apparently the phone connection between Birmingham and Northampton is as unreliable as the train service!!
When Robbie surfaced on Saturday he was still behaving like a bear with a sore head and I was totally fed up with his behaviour. I refuses to accept his lame apology, as far as I am concerned “I'm sorry but you shouldn't wind me up” is not an apology it is an excuse. He decided to leave home and packed a rucksack while I watched with interest. It reminded me of the time that Laura left home when she was about three. She took her Edd the Duck rucksack, a noddy cuddly toy, four packets of raisins and a carton of fruit juice. She forgot to take a coat, but as she only went as far as the garden shed she didn't really need it! Robbie packed his laptop and his ipod, but I knew he didn't intend to leave because he didn't pack any clean underwear! He was furious when he realised that I wasn't taking him seriously, but in the end we had to laugh about it.
Once we were friends again you may have expected Robbie to have a few loving thoughts to share, but in his own unique way Robbie surprised me with a completely random comment. He informed me that when he was a child his mum had a Hoover Junior, he then asked if I remembered the Hoover Senior because his grandmother had one of those. I replied that I didn't and I wasn't especially interested in the history of vacuum cleaners. The next time I checked my email he had sent me links to three sites about old vacuum cleaners. Why does he have to be quite so unique?
