Lockdown: Week 9
Louise has got a black eye. I’m keen to express from the off that I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Last Sunday, we put the lads down for their naps and Louise said she was exhausted (lightweight) so fancied a lie down too. Everyone napping. Wonderful. I basked in rare silence for a few minutes before finding myself watching a Bundesliga 2 match between SV Wehen Wiesbaden and VfB Stuttgart. Questioning whether this was the best use of my time, I heard a loud bang and some shouting upstairs. Louise then appeared in the living room with a cut under her eye and blood pouring down her face.
What had happened, it transpired, was this: Joshua hadn’t gone to sleep after all. Instead, he’d climbed out of his cot, snuck into our bedroom, and woken Louise up by chucking a glass of water in the air, straight onto her face. It looked awful and I became frantic, wondering whether an ambulance was necessary. Louise is tough though and was more concerned with making sure Joshua, who was now jumping up and down and smashing two Triceratopses into one another, was okay. He was overtired and in shock, therefore beyond bonkers and his brother decided to join the party by waking up and bawling uncontrollably. Tears, blood on the walls, a late VAR penalty in the VfB Stuttgart game. It was mayhem. Not quite knowing what to do next, I took the lads out in the car for a long drive. I can’t believe I am now a person who says, “Right, that’s it. We’re going for a drive!” in a family crisis.
Thankfully, Louise’s cut wasn’t as deep as we’d feared, she’s not in pain, and it should heal up just fine. She does, though, have an enormous shiner and I would pay a substantial amount of money for this not to be the case. I hate the fact that my wife has a black eye. It is not a good look. For her or me. I’m already self-conscious about my appearance; my hair has never looked worse and a recent attempt to shake up my wardrobe (plastic clothes rack) via ASOS resulted in a “tan” t-shirt the exact colour of baby poo and a black and white striped top that makes me look like the Gladiators referee, John Anderson. A black-eyed wife doesn’t help matters.
The day after the incident, Louise was in the garden and the lady next door came over and asked, in hushed tones, whether she wanted to confide in her. Come on now? Do I really look the type? Has she not seen me bottling using a chainsaw, being unable to reverse out of my drive on numerous occasions or, once, like a really shit version of the Crystal Maze, trying to catch the contents of our recycling bin after the lid flew open and litter swirled around in the air? These are not the actions of a violent man.
I suppose it’s good we have neighbours looking out for us, but it would have been preferable to discover this without people assuming I punch my wife in the face. How many people on the street are thinking it? Upwards of 60%? Discussions in the kitchen will have been had, won’t they? On Thursday night’s clap for carers, I considered setting the record straight by shouting, “I DIDN’T DO IT!” but thought this might have come across aggressive, or perhaps a bit doth protest too much.
To give Louise a rest, and the option of lying down without picking up a visible facial injury, I took the lads to the park the other morning. It went well until we set off home; I asked Joshua to get back in his pram and he flatly refused then, when I tried to pick him up, stuck his arms in the air, kicked his legs and shouted. An effective move.
“Okay. Fine. You can walk.”
Midway home, for no discernible reason, he had another meltdown which resulted in him lying face down on the street, kicking his heels. One way of dealing with his tantrums is diversion. i.e., “How many leaves can you count on this tree?” “How many cars can you see?” etc. The issue is, as soon as you stop the diversion, the tantrum just picks up where it left off. It’s like lockdown, there is no clear exit strategy. Anyway, this time, I was further hamstrung by Jacob being asleep in a baby carrier on my chest and I was struggling for a solution. I mulled over my options, then rang Louise.
“I don’t know what to do. Can you come and get us?”
As we were waiting, Joshua still on the floor, shouting, a man in his seventies ambled over, smiling and shaking his head.
“Oh, aren’t they wonderful at this age!” he said.
“That’s one word…”
He then held out his walking stick for Joshua to pull himself up. Nice gesture, I suppose, but a bit odd? Gladly, Joshua showed no interest in grabbing a stranger’s walking stick during a worldwide pandemic. Instead, he stood up and darted off down someone’s drive. I’m not sure if the old man noticed this happening because he continued chatting away.
“Oh, I remember when my two were that age…”
“Sorry to be rude but I can’t currently see my son. I should probably go and find him.”
“We’re going back 50 years now. I remember taking them blackberry picking…”
“Right, bye then.”
Obviously, while we were around the back of a stranger’s house was the exact time Louise arrived in the car so she didn’t see us and drove straight past. Eventually, after some terse words on the phone, we were reunited. I was extremely stressed but, on seeing his mum, Joshua instantly snapped back to his usual cheery self. What problem?
I’m aware I might be painting Joshua as the villain of the piece here so I should add, with him being a toddler and everything, his behaviour is entirely excusable, his tantrums aren’t actually that frequent, and, most of the time, he is brilliant. There you go, Louise.
This week also saw our third wedding anniversary which we celebrated with a day out at Angler’s Country Park. Gladly it was sunglasses weather so I wasn’t shot any filthy looks from the residents of Wakefield. We had a picnic in the woods, then strolled around a lake and, notwithstanding one small episode where he dashed off into a field of rapeseed, something I couldn’t be more allergic too, and I frantically chased after him with red eyes and a streaming nose, Joshua was in fine form all day. We had a lovely time.
“Happy anniversary,” I said to Louise after we’d got home and opened a bottle of wine. “I love you.”
Louise’s phone picked up on my voice and Siri spoke.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to respond to that.”
Although Louise hadn’t said it herself, this seemed a depressingly fitting reply for a wife with a black eye.
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