Chasing Cars

Recently Rob was headhunted (further evidence of how awesome he clearly is) so he is currently idling his days away completing his notice period before he starts his brand new job in Mid-July. So basically for a whole month his days consist of sleeping in late followed by 3 whole hours of work before heading straight back home again. Though some days he does completely skip the 3 hours of work part. What an incredibly tough life, eh?

His new employers kindly gave him £15,000 to go buy himself a new car and so he'd been spending some of his newly acquired free time looking around for the perfect automobile. He finally settled on a very lovely Volkswagen Passat. We love Volkswagen in this house, thank you Germany! (Now those are three words I never imagined uttering in this lifetime!)

Today I had one of those days, you know where you never really get around to brushing your hair and you just wanna wear a big old comfy hoody and count down the hours until (the kids) bedtime? Eli seems to have developed a reflex that enables him to identify just exactly when I am falling into a deep and restful slumber and proceeds to scream his head off. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of it. For his well being and also my own I hope it is a very temporary problem. I'm not a big fan of the piece of art he created on the side of the white bookcase today with a green wax crayon while I turned my back for a whole 12 seconds either (just so you know!). But on the bright side green is at least my favourite colour.

When Rob got home he could clearly tell from my appearance that I wasn't having a terrific parenting day. So when he was leaving to purchase his new car he suggested taking one of the kids or even both along. I immediately envisioned happily strapping both of my angels into his car and waving a fond farewell for an hour or so, then the guilt kicked in and I felt unfair (stupid guilt!) making him take both. So instead I suggested he take Thomas because he'd be the easier child to have on such an errand. When Eli came to the realisation that Rob and Thomas were going somewhere he clearly wasn't invited he decided the best reaction would be complete hysteria. It was obviously effective because somehow one thing led to another and we all ended up going, yep, even me in my over sized hoody, unkempt hair and all. I'm sure I was a visual delight.

While we were waiting for Rob to check he'd locked the front door twelve times (he has a slight OCD issue) Thomas was reporting to me that we were going to get Daddy a new car,

"Daddy needs a new car because this one has rain on it!"

Sadly if we changed our cars every single time they got rained on we'd be flaming living at the VW dealership.

The new car was quickly identified and paid for. It got a definite thumbs up from both kids, Eli who managed to turn the radio on and Thomas who had clambered into the back and secured his seat belt perfectly. I bet those salespeople really love when people take their kids to these places and then let them climb around in the cars like animals.

While we were filling the paperwork Eli was being Eli and Thomas commented that Eli is a 'cheeky monkey' (which is a fairly accurate description) to which Eli responded with a endless stream of monkey noises, which sent Thomas and then Eli into a frenzy of giggles. Neither of them wanted to leave without the brand new car and were more than happy to let the world know of their unhappiness so we had to resort to bribing them with Happy Meals, whoever discovered bribery was a total genius! I salute you!

I expect poor Paolo the salesman really really feels like he earned every single penny of his commission.