Wondering what the neighbours think...

I hate the term "white trash", but it conjures a certain image very quickly... and I wonder if the neighbours might be applying it to us. We certainly don't see ourselves as such, but one wonders if you ever really see yourself in such a light. But today, I caught a glimpse of what we might be becoming.

Ange and I got home from work. Whether it was the pleasure of having mum and dad home or punishment for us having elected to go to work in the first place, both Anna and Caleb quickly melted down. Anna screaming because she couldn't watch Ice Age 3 and Caleb... well, at first, it wasn't entirely clear what Caleb wanted. Caleb took his screaming to the garden, where he promptly took off his trousers which were apparently the root of all unhappiness. So now we have a sniffling kid running around the garden in only his nappy and another screaming child in the background.

Tonight was the night we were going to go to Ikea and no amount of child protesting was gong to change that plan. We were going to Ikea because the plastic Disney princess paraphernalia and Barbie accessories were taking over our house and we needed some serious Swedish organization to bring sanity back to Anna and Caleb's rooms (Anna's toys have inexplicably spilled into Caleb's room). On this night without scheduled responsibility, it was either Ikea or gardening and gardening is a mountain that I fear to climb. I like the idea, but there's sheer hard work involved. The people who owned the house before us clearly didn't care for gardens.... or at least this particular garden. We're in a fight against years of non-weeding residents. Add to that my complete lack of vision for adding plants that might go together and we've either got a modern art type garden or simply a disaster. Anyway, it was Ikea this night because Ikea included a cheap meal at the Ikea restaurant to go with flat pack furniture guaranteed to make our lives better.

And so is the culmination of a night where I wonder if--for a moment--we might have crossed the line into one of "those" neighbours. Let me paint the picture: we arrive back from Ikea with two tired kids. Caleb is back in only his nappy, having again discarded his trousers. On letting him out of the car, he takes off down the street. Anna, meanwhile is putting up a pre-emptive fight over going to bed--her hair a tangled, matted hive because of the scratching at the end of a bout with the chicken pox and her pink shirt covered in gravy from the Swedish meatballs she'd had for dinner. We unpack the car: this includes our new flat-pack furniture with its giant bright pink plastic tubs (chosen by Anna to put her pink plastic Barbie bits in), much rubbish and the dirty nappy from the boot-change that had happened 20 minutes earlier. Caleb, also covered in gravy, is collected just before entering the intersection at the end of the road and carried back under one arm (bright pink plastic tubs in the other). Both children are ushered across the lawn, through the squall of dandelion fluff, to the front door. While opening the door, Caleb is put down and immediately makes a run for it. While entry to the house is gained, Caleb is lost to the back garden where he immediately pulls out the hockey stick and demands a game of street hockey wearing only his nappy and a gravy covered t-shirt... which, incidentally was bought for a pound out of the back of a car at Sunday market in rural Norfolk.

Let's hope the fact that we actually endured bath time and made them brush their teeth pulls us back from the brink...