Cookies

Give a child a cookie and he shall eat for 60 seconds.

Teach a child to bake cookies and behold- you shall both eat cookies and cookie dough until you are satisfied.

And the kitchen floor shall be hazardously slippy until you mop it twice.

And you shall find remnants of flour in all rooms of the house for many days henceforth.

Storage

I recently found myself back in the house we used to rent. Only one kid was present and he was a toddler again which is very weird as he's the middle child and there was no sign of the other two. My cousin was pleading with me to help her die as she could no longer cope with depression. After explaining that an overdose would take too long and anything involving blunt or sharp instruments would create too much mess, she outlined her method to me. I accepted her rationale, helped her climb into a duvet storage bag then vacuumed packed her to death with the hoover hose. Then I hid her body in a kitchen cupboard, which was now no longer in my ex-kitchen but in Molly and Arthur Weasley's. Disturbingly, there were MORE vacuum packed people in the cupboard, all stacked neatly in the fetal position, head to toe. I knew nothing about them. I don't think I did anyway.

Oh.

Dear.

God.

Maybe I do...

I have never been more relieved to wake up. Ever.

My dream hangover lingered way longer than one cup of tea. Normally I wake from much more pleasant (or at least neutral) scenarios and can literally feel the details slip away from me as I become aware that the thing that just happened was a dream. The very decision to recall the finer points of events only speeds up their escape from my head.

Not this dream.

Honestly, this is concerning.

Would the argument for efficient storage and containment of bodily fluids be compelling factors for my subconscious' agreement to participate in assisted suicide? Perhaps on more than one occasion?

There are many reasons I left the NHS. This should have been one of them.

Sleeping arrangements

OK, and while we are considering family guidelines, let’s refresh our memories on how to handle sleeping parents:

Let them sleep

A sleeping parent is a beautiful thing. Consider how peaceful and undemanding they are in this state. Consider also how much unpleasantness may be avoided by allowing them wake naturally. Some crucial wonderings should remain in your head and not be verbalised before the alarm. These include things like:

• Can I have hot school dinners tomorrow?
• I have nothing to do
• I can't find the iPad charger
• Noodle has no pouches/cat biscuits left
• When is it my birthday again?

Conversations that begin before 7am with any of the above opening lines will not go well.

Very occasionally it may be unavoidable to disturb a sleeping parent, but I reiterate, these will be rare situations that demand an urgent response from a grown up (well, me or your dad). Examples are:

• Blood loss
• Fire
• Vomiting

In between these two extremes lies another, less clearly defined group of scenarios. These are instances which are more pressing that the lack of imagination or cat food, but do not involve haemorrhaging. In these 'in-between' cases, may I suggest you first assess the situation to establish that adult intervention is absolutely necessary, then approach the bed quietly and in darkness and whisper to get our attention. Examples of such situations here are:

• Nightmares (I admit, monsters are deeply afraid of our warm double bed and never bother us)
• Pain (Please pick up the Calpol on your way in and I'll do the fiddly child lock thing once my hands wake up)
• Christmas Day (After 7am. And bring me a cup of tea to sip while we look through your stocking)

Thank you for doing life with us. Please re-familiarise yourselves with the above to maximise the good bits. XXX

Amendment

Proposal for change in family charter. Raised by myself on 06.01.14 at 1800hrs (after feeding and therefore gaining the trust of those present).

Background to case: 
1. I personally wish to be fitter. And a little bit lighter. This way you (Oh largest Brewsling) can overtake me in weight as well as:
• height (this happened last year) 
• shoe size (May-ish 2011. He's now a size 9 and mocks my childlike feet)
• ability to synch our shared iTunes account (I still can't do this), reboot the server (I CAN do this as it's a simple off and on again job) and
• basically fulfil all household technical needs in the absence of your father (there's a whole ton of man crap that goes on in this house that I have no interest or gifting in. This covers ALL of that).
• Finally you shall likely gain the upper hand when we arm wrestle

Doesn't that sound good? Yes? Ok- moving on. 

2. Gym membership is a drain on our family's resources.

3. We now own Wii dance. Using it in the comfort of our own home is therefore effectively free of charge, bar what we bequeath to e.on each month out of the goodness of our hearts. 

Recommendations:
I hereby propose that from this day forth, the Wii U may be used on Thursday - Tuesday for the purposes of health and fitness by jumping and sweating along to I kissed a girl and Gimme Gimme Gimme a man after midnight until one of us gets co-ordinated enough to win more coins and unlocks a wider variety of (perhaps more edifying) songs. Weekend game play will remain unchanged.

Would anyone like to second this proposal?
Biggest Brewsling. Fab- thank you. You don't dance so I wasn't sure how this would go with you.

Family vote?
Yeah! Everyone's happy.  Fantastic. Let's adopt this policy immediately. (No- PUT THE CONTROLLER DOWN! Thank you- we shall reconvene in the den after you've washed up and I've emptied my bladder.)