An evening to remember

And it's only 7:31 pm!

Imagine this... both girls are in their PJs, all clean and warm after bath and dinner (yes, in that order, why do you ask?). We are all hanging out in the darkened lounge room.

It becomes apparent that Hazel has dropped her guts big time, so off Trudi goes to change her nappy. We don't usually have evening poos. Ha ha, Trudi noticed it so she has to change it.

Then Ivy follows suit. Unfortunately I noticed this one, so off we go for a cleansing nappy-change ritual.

By now it's 7:15. Bedtime is 7:30 so we are under the gun. Bed-bags, bottles, books: it's all happening, then Trudi mentions that the loungeroom is still a bit whooffy after the two untimely poos. We notice the sound of scuffling from the study.

An aside: The cat litter box is in the study. This is the only room in the house that is off-limits to the girls.

So Selby is in the litter box, having droped HER guts in there. She's a clean little beastie so now she's trying to cover it all up. It sounds like she's trying to do a 3-point turn over it, again and again. Pellets are going everywhere.

By now we are reading Maisy's Bed-Time, which includes an unfortunate sequence in which Maisy can't go to sleep because she needs the loo. Also her bear Panda needs the potty. We have to contain our giggles because the girls are sleepy and we don't want to razz them up.

The room stinks. It is absolutely foul. We press on with the Maisy book. The girls seem to be fine with the new reek.

Selby leaves the room and all is quiet if a bit close.

Time to start the next book, in which Maisy goes to bed again, this time with Little Black Cat in tow. Not a welcome image. Selby is SO not sleeping in our bed tonight.

While working our way through Goodnight Moon ("goodnight clocks, goodnight socks, goodnight kittens, goodnight mittens..."), Minke hops into the litter box and makes her contribution. Also absolutely unspeakable. This never happens. We can go for weeks without changing the litter cos the cats won't use it unless they are desperate. The loungeroom is uninhabitable but the girls are sleepy so we press on.

Finished the books, it's time to take the girls off to their cots. Trudi stands up and there is a funny cracking noise. "Wossat?" I ask, and she lurches around to show me, Hazel in her arms. Trudi has somehow stood on one of the balloons left over from the birthday party last weekend, and it has wedged itself up inside her tracky pants, next to her ankle. She wrenches it out without dropping her daughter and we parade off to the bedroom with dignity.

So here I sit, telling you all about our evening so far. All the windows are open, the cat shit is gone, and Trudi is watching a Clint Eastwood DVD. The girls seem to be asleep.