The Displaced Nation

I really don’t want to make this phone call. But I dial the number anyway.

The phone picks up at the other end, a child answers, and I’m about to launch into a high-pitched, nervous Hello-is-your-mommy-there routine when I realise it’s not a real child but one who’s been recorded in a message.

“Hiiiiiii….. This is the Addisons’ house.” (A breathy sigh and some adult promptings in the background.) “Say your number and — and — who you are and my mommy will call you.” (Another pause and more prompts.) “Or my daddy. But not Sammy, because he’s a cat and he can’t talk.” Beep.

Crystal’s parents probably love this message. However (and look away now if you’re easily shocked) I don’t find other children as cute as their parents do. Not that I’d ever admit it, of course. It would mean social suicide for Jack if his mother didn’t openly consider his little friends to be “precious” or “adorable.”

“This is Libby Patrick,” I say. Ugh. Leaving messages, for me, is almost as bad as listening to those recorded by nauseating five-year-olds. “Your daughter gave a gift to my son at nursery school. You might be missing an item from your model car collection.” I give my cell phone number and hang up.

Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Certainly, it will be a picnic compared to the next stage of the gift-returning process, which is the extraction of a red, collectible, model car from Jack’s sticky grasp.

I find Jack in his bedroom, making soft vroom-vroom noises and scooting the Ferrari around his Lego table.

“Sweetheart,” I say, bending down to his level, Supernanny-style. “Would you like to go to the toy shop? Maggie’s coming over later for tea. We could all go out together and buy a new toy car for you.”

Yes, I know. Total coward.  A stronger woman would explain the situation and firmly tell Jack he must give the Ferrari back to his little girlfriend. No bribes, no tantrums, no more cars to add to his already expansive Hotwheels collection.

Jack looks up from his impromptu racetrack. “Another car?”

“Yes.”

“So I get two cars today?” His voice rises an octave in excitement at his good fortune.

I consider my next words carefully. They could mean the difference between peace on earth and Armageddon in New England.

“Well, yes. But not at the same time.”

Jack narrows his eyes at me.

“I mean –” I flounder “– I’ll buy you another car, but we have to give this one back to Crystal.”

Jack picks up the car and hugs it protectively. “No.”

“She shouldn’t have given it to you. It belongs to her daddy, and now we have to give it back, but I know you’re disappointed, and I’ll buy you another car to make up for it.”

A nice one, I think, although not one that goes for 150 bucks on eBay, but Jack is having none of it.

“No! It’s MINE! Go AWAY!”

He hugs the car even tighter and throws himself on the floor in the foetal position. This is what comes, I think, of letting him watch American football all winter.

Come on, Libby. WWSD? What Would Supernanny Do?

Probably not what I do next, which is wrench the car from his hands and put it on the top shelf of his bookcase. He jumps to his feet, ineffectually trying to reach it down again, and calls me something that I can only imagine he’s learned from lip-reading football coaches on TV when the opposing team scores a touchdown.

“You do not speak to Mummy like that,” I say, wagging a finger at him and trying to keep my voice low and authoritative while disguising my shock at his new vocabulary.

“Yes I do!” Jack roars. “You took my car!”

He aims a kick at my shins. A four-year-old shouldn’t be able to inflict much damage, but this one is still wearing his Timberland boots and has accurate aim. I’m sure the Patriots would be interested in having him on the team one day, but right now —

“You little git,” I mutter through gritted teeth. “You want to play football? Let’s do timeout.” I take him by the shoulder and propel him through the bedroom door to the Naughty Spot outside the linen closet. “Sit there. Five minutes, and don’t you dare move.”

I go downstairs to attend to the twins, and Jack sits, cross-legged and seething but subdued, outside the linen closet.

I’ll give it to Supernanny, this Naughty Spot technique really works.

* * *

As I finish filling the twins’ sippy cups, my cellphone rings. It’s Crystal’s mum, who sounds confused when I tell her we have an item that might belong to her but, upon checking the display cabinet in her TV den, gasps and confirms there is a gap that should be filled by a small Ferrari. She would appreciate its return before Crystal’s daddy notices, she says. Her tone indicates that it’s all Jack’s fault and that he’s coerced her daughter into stealing.

“While you’re on the phone,” she says, “may I ask — are the crackers that Jack gave Crystal gluten-free?”

It’s my turn to be confused now. “Crackers?”

“Yes, crackers. They look like animal crackers but darker. She’s allergic to wheat, gluten, peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, turkey, and soy, so I need to check what’s in them before she eats them.”

It’s amazing the child eats anything at all. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Jack gave Crystal two pencils. Not animal crackers.”

“Maybe they came from the school party, then,” she says. “But the wooden box was definitely from Jack.”

Box? I rummage through Jack’s backpack before answering. Beth’s wooden box from Maggie, that Jack took in for show-and-tell, is not there.

“Does it have pictures of fairies and toadstools, by any chance?” I ask.

* * *

Crystal’s mum was quite unreasonable. Apparently, it was OK for me to traumatise Jack by taking her husband’s toy Ferrari away from him, but not OK for her to traumatise Crystal by taking Beth’s box from her. “But your little girl is only a baby — how will she know?” she said at one point in the conversation. Finally, grudgingly, she agreed to return the box, but only when I hinted I might put Hubby’s little car on eBay.

I’m still fuming half an hour later when Maggie arrives, bearing a box of homemade cookies.

“I thought we could have these with our tea. Jack loves cookies,” she says, looking round. “Cookies, biscuits, whatever he likes to call them. Where is Jack, anyway? Still at school?”

I slap my forehead.

“Still in timeout.” Supernanny recommends a minute on the Naughty Spot for each year of a child’s age, so according to my timeout calculations, Jack by rights should have started male menopause.

I creep upstairs, thoroughly ashamed. “Jack,” I call. “It’s OK, sweetheart, you can get off the Naughty Spot now. Mummy’s so sorry…Jack?”

Jack has already taken the initiative and vacated the punishment space. I look in his room, expecting to see him playing with Ironman and Captain America, but he’s not there. He’s not in the bathroom, or the twins’ room, or our bedroom.

“I can’t find him,” I say to Maggie, hearing the panic in my own voice. “He’s just — gone.”

“He can’t be. Think. Where did you leave him?” she asks, as if he’s a bag of shopping or my reading glasses.

I point. “On the landing, by the linen closet. But he’s not upstairs–”

Maggie ignores me and tiptoes up the stairs. I follow. She stops by the linen closet, turns and puts a finger to her lips, then quickly opens the closet door.

Squeezed onto one of the shelves, concertinaed into a space far smaller than I’d ever thought possible, is Jack. He has cookie crumbs smeared all round his mouth and down the front of his T-shirt, and looks very happy.

I’m too relieved at seeing him to be cross that he’s eating between meals. On the other hand, all cookies and snacks have been banished to the top shelf of the pantry where he can’t reach them, so—

“What are you eating?” I demand.

Jack, I can see, is trying to hide something under the pile of pillowcases he’s sitting on. I reach into the closet, under the pillowcases, and pull out a box.

A varnished wooden box, painted with trains and cars, the one Maggie gave him for Christmas. I reach under the linens again and pull out another box. George’s. They’re both heavier than I remember, and they rattle.

I open one, and then the other.

They’re full of cookies: the animal cracker-type cookies that Crystal’s mum had described.

“Did you get these cookies at school today?” I ask Jack.

He unfolds himself from the shelf and squirms free. After a pause, he nods.

I’m getting to know that pause-then-nod technique. It means he’s telling fibs.

“Did you take them from the pantry?” I ask. “Did you climb on a chair and take these cookies from the snack shelf?”

Because the thing is, these cookies look familiar.

Jack shakes his head vigorously. He’s not fibbing. He mutters something.

“Excuse me?” I lean down to hear him better.

“I said they’re biscuits not cookies.”

“Don’t push your luck, sunshine. Stop contradicting me.”

Maggie holds up her hand. “Let me see.”

After a quick glance, she says: “Jack’s right. They’re not cookies, they’re biscuits.”

“They look like animal crackers to me,” I say.

Maggie smirks.

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose they are,” she says. “They’re Fergus’s special canine-celiac dog biscuits.”

*  *  *

In the kitchen, I read the empty packet of Fergus’s dog biscuits that Maggie has fetched from her house. The calorific content is terrifying.

“No wonder Jack’s been putting on weight,” I say. “And no wonder he liked being in timeout so much. It was snack time, with his secret stash under the pillowcases.”

“More to the point, no wonder poor Fergus has been starving.” Maggie strokes Fergus’s head. He gazes up at her, his eyes half-closed. “But Jack loves these things. He must really like this little girl to give them away to her.”

I put the packet down, and look for the phone.

“That reminds me, I’d better call Crystal’s mum,” I say. “I should let her know Jack’s present was gluten-free after all.”

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #73 – Stuck in my craw(fish)

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #71 – Bonnie and Clyde go to preschool

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

 STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jack and I sit at the kitchen table, surrounded by the Disney Valentine cards and heart-decorated pencils I bought in January. It’s serious business, writing out sixteen Valentine cards when you’ve only just learned your alphabet — Jack, not me — and over the course of this afternoon’s school project, Jack’s right fist has acquired a layer of black pencil smudges, and my patience is now but a chiffon veneer.

“Last card,” I say. Not before time. “Which one for Crystal?” I ask Jack. “The little one with Cinderella, or the big one with Belle?”

I know it’s not conventional to do this kind of project in late February, but the massive snowstorm and resultant clear-up three weeks ago meant the nursery school’s planned Valentine’s Party was cancelled. Jack had been distraught and sulked for days, his mood lifting only when he learned that the party would take place two weeks later instead. I was surprised at this; last year’s episode at his other preschool should have put him off romance for life.

Jack points at the card with Belle on the front. “That one for Crystal. The big one.

He picks up his pencil and writes “Jack” in the space marked “From”, his tongue poking out of one side of his mouth, then painstakingly copies Crystal’s name from the list provided by the nursery school. After he writes the final letter, I hold out my hand, ready to Scotch tape a new pencil onto the card like all the others.

“I haven’t finished yet,” he says, and proceeds to write two rows of x’s at the bottom of the card. When he runs out of room, he admires his handiwork, and passes it to me. “And Crystal needs two pencils.”

The clouds part, and at last I understand why Jack was so disappointed when the real Valentine’s party was cancelled.

You always give the big Valentine to the person you like best at nursery school — I remember this from last year. But two pencils? That’s serious.

At not quite five years old, my son Jack is in love.

*  *  *

With or without a crush on a five-year-old girl with blonde pigtails and a predilection for Hello Kitty T-shirts, Jack likes going to nursery school. He likes the toy car corner, and the toy DIY workbench you can bang loudly and legitimately with plastic hammers, and he particularly likes the Show-and-Tell sessions, where the children are encouraged to bring something from home to talk about. Some kids refuse to take anything, ever, and others like to bring something every day. Jack, being a talkative soul, is of the latter persuasion, but unfortunately his selection of objects is limited. He takes either a toy Lightning McQueen or a model of Ironman, and no helpful suggestions from me — “A seashell? A pound coin? This empty Curly Wurly wrapper?” — will convince him otherwise.

Today, though, he surprises me: as I walk him from the parking lot into school I notice he’s carrying the little wooden box that Maggie gave Beth for Christmas, the one with fairies and toadstools painted on it. Come to think of it, this is the first time in weeks I’ve seen it.

“Is that for Show-and-Tell?” I ask, and after a second’s pause he nods.

While I’m pleased he’s exercising his imagination by bringing something other than overpriced, trademarked tat, I’m concerned because the box doesn’t belong to him.

“You must look after it,” I say, helping him off with his coat, then adding unconvincingly, “and you should have asked Beth first before you took it.”

Jack glances at his sister in her pushchair then shoots me a disbelieving look that says clearly, “But Beth is ten months old and can’t talk yet.”

“Just make sure you bring it home again!” I call to him as he runs into the classroom clutching the box to his chest and is lost in a heaving sea of pink-and-red-clad, over-excited Lilliputians.

*  *  *

Parties are not parties without swag bags, and this Valentine’s party is no exception. Jack bursts into the house after school and, while I’m depositing the twins on the floor to crawl around and eat interesting items on the floor, dumps a brown paper bag upside-down on the kitchen table.

A heap of Valentine cards — pretty much identical to those we wrote yesterday — plus heart-decal pencils, temporary tattoos of Cupid, heart-shaped erasers, and heart-shaped lollipops scatter everywhere. Jack picks through them, putting the small gifts on one side and the cards on another. Then he goes through the gift pile and discards anything that is inedible and too frou-frou. The cards and girly gifts are ruthlessly chucked in the kitchen bin.

I close my eyes, reliving the two (pointless) hours yesterday of writing every child’s name on a card. In sixteen other Woodhaven homes at this moment, Jack’s careful handiwork and probably quite a few of his pencils  have met a similar fate and are now resting among potato peelings and flu-ridden tissues.

Or maybe not. One card has escaped the carnage: a large one with a picture of Ironman. It’s signed: “Lv Frm Crstl”. Presumably Crystal-who-must-receive-two-pencils, who appears to have a grudge against vowels.

I ask, as casually as possible, “Did Crystal like the pencils?”

Jack hesitates, then nods.

“And what did Crystal give to everyone?”

“Erasers.” Jack holds up one of the minuscule heart-shaped erasers. “And a car.” He delves into his Lightning McQueen backpack and brings out a model car.

“That’s nice,” I say. Then I study the car more closely. “You mean Crystal gave everyone one of these?”

Jack shakes his head proudly. “Only me.”

I’ll bet. This car is not a Matchbox or Hotwheels; it’s a 1/18 model of a classic Ferrari that bears more than a passing resemblance to Jack’s automotive hero, Lightning McQueen. I turn it upside down and look at for the manufacturer and model number, and do a quick google on my phone.

The results make me feel faint. An identical model is for sale on eBay. Fourteen bids, $150, reserve not met.

My guess is that a display cabinet somewhere in Crystal’s home — probably in a male-dominated part of the house — has a vacant spot at the moment.

You know — in all my fervent watching of Supernanny, I’ve yet to see an episode where one parent has to tell another mum and dad that their child is a kleptomaniac.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #72 – Puppy Love

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #70 – A brewing storm 

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

 STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jack lies on the kitchen floor in his red pyjamas, legs and arms flailing, his face a puce, wet, dripping mess.

He looks like an overripe tomato.

“I want Fergus!” he wails, then hitches in a breath for more volume. “I — want — Fergus — baaaack!”

Despite all the episodes of Supernanny that I’ve watched over the years , I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried “bringing myself down to his level” (crouching down to make myself three feet tall), looking him in the eye, using a firm voice, putting him in time-out on the Naughty Spot, asking for apologies and hugs…

Nothing works. At nearly five, he should be growing out of tantrums, not more into them by the day.

The Naughty Spot, a mat outside the laundry closet, worked for about a month until a few days after Fergus left. Jack would sit on the landing quietly in time-out, and happily give me a hug and a “Sorry” when his five minutes was up. (I must be honest and admit here that it was usually more than the allotted five minutes, because I’d go off and do something else and forget he was there.)

I don’t want him to think he gets a reward for bad behaviour, but in this case, it’s unavoidable.

“You can stop that silly noise right now,” I say, sounding like my granny. “You’re going to see Fergus today because we are staying at Maggie’s tonight.”

The screams and kicking magically stop. For a second.

I put my hands over my ears as Jack yells again, this time with joy, and the twins in their high chairs yell with alarm.

“Go get dressed,” I tell him, raising my voice above the noise. “Your clothes are on your bed.”

*  *  *

“This storm looks as if it’s going to be a bad one,” Maggie had said to me yesterday. “We’re bound to lose power on this street, because we always do. Have you got a generator yet?”

I shuffled my feet and mumbled, as if she’d asked me where last night’s maths homework was. “No.”

“Then all of you should come and stay with me tomorrow night until it’s over, or until you get power back on. All five of you. No fun in a house in these temperatures, with three babies and no heat or hot water.”

“We can’t do that,” Oliver said, when I told him of Maggie’s offer. He has no idea what it’s like here without electricity. He’d been safely in England the last time we had a long power-cut.

” ‘We’?” I said. ” ‘You’ can do what you like, my love. Stay in a refrigerator if you prefer, should the worst happen. But the children and I are thinking ahead and staying in Maggie’s nice warm house.”

And after some grumbling, he agreed.

*  *  *

 Jack comes downstairs, fully dressed but not accurately so. I turn his sweatshirt so it’s not back-to-front, and twist a sock round so that the heel is under his foot. His jeans, I’m relieved to see, are looser than they were two weeks ago.

After nearly falling out with Maggie over what she perceived as Jack’s weight issue, I was mortified, when I went clothes shopping for him a couple of days later, to find that the regular boys’ trousers I bought for him were too tight when he put them on at home. I had to take them back and exchange them for the ‘Husky’ fitting, for boys with more generous waistlines. Maggie and that awful paediatrician had been correct, and my son was indeed piling on the inches.

“Puppy fat,” Maggie said, when I apologised later for getting huffy with her when she had been correct in her observation. “Just puppy fat. It will go.”

I wasn’t so sure though — and I was totally at a loss to explain how he could be putting on weight like that. Since Christmas I have only given him organic food — lots of vegetables and fruit and lean meat and stuff like that — and any treats are on the top shelf of the pantry where he can’t reach them. I did this after smugly watching one episode of Supernanny on Christmas Eve that showed a sugar-crazed toddler running around and bashing his younger brother with a toy car, before realising that my own elder son, who earlier had been quietly stuffing his face with a Hershey bar, was pounding George on the head with a plastic toy hammer.

That was the day all chocolate and cookies went on the top shelf, and the Naughty Spot on the landing instigated. Also the day the toy hammer was confiscated indefinitely.

Today, thought, Jack is the picture of sibling virtue as we all plod through the snowflakes across the street towards Maggie’s house.

Maggie sees us coming, opens the door, and we are greeted by a whirlwind of pit-bull-Labrador. Fergus bounds around us, nearly knocking me and Jack over. He saves his biggest welcome for Oliver, of course, but even so, I swear that dog has never been so happy in his life to see me. Not even after several months in kennels while he waited to be shipped abroad.

When we are all inside and have stomped the snow from our boots onto the doormat,  Jack stands on socked tiptoes and indicates to Maggie that he wants to say something in private. She bends down to listen while he whispers in her ear.

“I haven’t got many of those, sweetheart,” she says to him. “They’re a bit expensive, so Fergus only has them as a special treat on Sundays.”

Jack’s mouth droops, and I’m afraid he’s about to go into meltdown. He asks, “Is it Sunday today?”

Maggie laughs. “We can pretend it is, can’t we?”

His mouth becomes a normal shape again. Meltdown situation averted.

“What did he want?” I ask Maggie when Jack has run off to her TV den, where she’s put the DVD of Finding Nemo on for him.

“He wanted to give Fergus one of his special doggie treats, and I said he could. I think he misses that dog, you know.”

I know he does, and I feel guilty. I’d been so intent on getting rid of Fergus that I’d forgotten Jack’s feelings in the matter.

I tell Maggie this.

She frowns. “And yet he never bothered much with Fergus before, that I could see. Why all the fuss now, I wonder?”

Jack runs back into the hall to have another private word with Maggie. She shakes her head. “You’ll have to ask your mummy.”

Jack’s shoulders slump, and he slouches off back to the TV den.

“Ask me what?” I say.

“He wanted a cookie.”

“Ah.” I feel quite proud. “I think he knows better than to ask me that now. They’re strictly rationed in our house.”

Oliver laughs. “My mum did that to me once, when I was about 10, when she decided out of the blue that we should both go on a health kick, So I made myself jam sandwiches every morning before she got up, took them to school, and bought chocolate on the way home with the school lunch money she’d given me. She couldn’t understand why I kept putting on weight when all she fed me was cornflakes and salad.”

I roll my eyes at Maggie, as if to say, “You see what kind of a mother-in-law I have?”

Surprisingly, she doesn’t respond.

Later, when Oliver is busy taking our bags into the spare bedroom, she says: “Libby, you know I’m not one to interfere, and after our last near-argument about Jack, I’m reluctant to say anything at all, but…I have found that the more you stop someone from doing something, the more likely they are to find a way round the obstacle.”

I close my eyes. Maggie’s talking about Jack’s diet again, offering advice where it isn’t wanted.

“Thanks,” I say, and even I can hear the frostiness in my tone that makes the frigid weather outside seem tropical in comparison.

Oh dear. I do hope this storm isn’t a long one. I would like to still be friends with Maggie when the snow has stopped.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #71  – Bonnie and Clyde go to preschool

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #69 – This dog’s life takes the biscuit

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

 STAY TUNED for next week’s posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Fergus looks up at me, down at his empty dish in the corner of the laundry room, then back at me again. I could be imagining things, but I think his lip is curling.

“No,” I say to him, as I pull one lot of washing out of the dryer and insert another wet load. “Just — no. You can’t be hungry, not again. It’s impossible. And it’s no good trying to fool me. I know you don’t eat everything in sight when Maggie’s in charge of you. You’re just doing it to annoy me.”

At Maggie’s name, Fergus pricks up his ears, wags his tail, and goes to sit by the back door under the coat hook where I keep his lead.

“Later,” I promise him. “You can see Maggie when Jack has gone to school and I’ve gone shopping with the twins. And in a few days more you’ll be with her all the time. Won’t that be nice?”

Nice for him, and oh-so-blissful for me. I am counting the days until next Wednesday, when Maggie has — hallelujah! — agreed to take Fergus and I can rid myself of this hound for good.

Maggie, though, is looking forward to having him. A couple of burglaries in town last month made her nervous, and she thinks a dog barking around the place will be a good deterrent.

“Besides,” she said, sounding rather sad, “he will be good company when you move house.”

Oliver and I haven’t got a moving date yet, but Maggie isn’t looking forward to losing us as neighbours, although we’ll still be in Woodhaven. We haven’t even found a new house to move into, but lately I’m spending so much time and money in the local supermarket that I’m starting to think we should cut out the middle man and set up home in the checkout line.

When I first arrived here, all I heard from the other wives was how cheap it was to live in America compared with England. “I spend three-and-sixpence a month on food, and have money left over for a jar of caviar and some more diamond earrings.” That kind of thing. After a while I sussed out that the reason the wives spent so little on food from the supermarket is because they ate at restaurants, and the husbands hid the bills on their company expense accounts at the end of the month.

With Oliver being boringly honest and never putting items on expenses unless they’re work-related, my own grocery bills are astronomical. Add in disposable nappies and cans of formula milk for two, and even Wills and Kate in their starter flat at Kensington Palace would balk at the monthly total.

But that’s before we get to the pet food aisle.

Fergus, as I mentioned when I started this journal, is one of the most stylish dogs in the world. Never mind diamanté collars or fluffy dog sweaters like Dr. Lowell’s ridiculous chihuahua wears — for his fashion accessories, Fergus has food allergies. He went on a gluten-free diet long before Lady Gaga did. Not for him the cheapo dog kibble; only the best for Fergus. Special gluten-free dog biscuits, more expensive per pound than Black Angus filet mignon.

Hey. Those biscuits are nothing to do with me.

They were Oliver’s idea. Maybe coddling the dog she gave us is a way of assuaging the guilt he feels towards his mother for abandoning her, or for letting the cat out of the bag about her bigamist husband. Whatever the motive, the upshot is that while normal dogs are happily gnawing on bones and finishing the children’s leftover chicken nuggets, Fergus is lording it with grain-free, venison-and-cinnamon-and-butternut-squash dog treats, at 25 bucks a pound. To even things out, I buy the cheapest canned meat without wheat filler, but he turns his nose up at it most of the time. Only those doggie-deli-delights will do.

Not content with his food’s Michelin 5-star quality, Fergus also has to have it in Supersize Me quantity. It doesn’t matter how often I fill his bowl with these delicate morsels — when I look again, the dish is empty, and Fergus has a mournful expression on his face, begging for seconds.

I told Maggie she should rename him Oliver. Twist, that is, not Patrick.

“But he never eats that much when he stays with me,” she says. “He gets whatever meat the butcher has going cheap, and nothing else. Perhaps he’s got worms.”

I’ve given him enough worming tablets to eradicate the subterranean population of Massachusetts. It’s made no difference.

Fergus is still sitting by the back door, staring up at his lead. Every few seconds he lets out a little whine and shifts from side to side on his front paws.

What the hell. It’s nearly time to go, anyway.

I bundle the twins into their snowsuits and fasten them into their double pushchair. Then I tug Jack’s arms into his big winter coat, and pull the two sides of the front together to do up the zip.

The two sides don’t quite meet. Jack’s got an extra layer of fleece on, admittedly, because it’s so cold here at the moment, but even so…

“I need to buy you more clothes while you’re at school today,” I say to him. “You’ve grown again. You’ve eaten too many cookies. You’re the Cookie Monster!”

“No, Mummy,” he says. “Biscuit Monster!”

“Ah, that’s right. Silly me.”

Jack is rather particular lately about his vocabulary. It’s very sweet. He corrects his American friends if they say “Truck” (“Lorry!”) or “Chips” (“Crisps!”) or, in this case, he corrects his mother for saying “Cookie” instead of “Biscuit.”

I think his obsession started when I got into watching old episodes of Supernanny USA. Supernanny herself is unapologetically Essex and sounds like Jack’s Granny Sandra, even after filming with families in New Jersey for two weeks. But although she talks like my mother-in-law, I like watching the programme because it makes me feel superior after I’ve had a bad day, and I can think “Well, at least I don’t do that.” Occasionally, though, an episode will bring me down to earth, like the one a few weeks ago when this woman had about nine kids who kept diving into packets of fun-sized Milky Ways every five minutes, and then bounced off the walls all day, much to the mother’s bewilderment.

I watched one of the nine children having a tantrum just as Jack lay on the floor, kicking and shouting because I’d taken a clandestine Hershey bar off him, which he was about to eat five minutes before lunch was ready. From then on, all chocolate and sugary things have lived on the top shelf of the pantry where Jack can’t reach them, and I’ve doled them out sparingly, only once a day, in accordance with a big set of Mum’s Rules which I wrote in black marker on poster board immediately after the TV programme ended.

Jack seems to have adapted, though. After one episode on the naughty spot outside the landing linen closet on Boxing Day, he accepted it. I can’t say his tantrums have got much better, though.

With some pushing and huffing, I finally get his coat fastened.

“Ready to go?” I ask him. He nods, as best as he can beneath layers of woolly hat, hood, and scarf.

Fergus barks — once, twice, three times.

I open the back door, and the dog shoots out, straight across the road and up Maggie’s driveway. A Jeep coming down the street slows for him and honks its horn. Fergus looks back briefly. If a dog were physically capable of flipping the bird, Fergus just did it.

Next Wednesday can’t come a minute too soon.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #70  – A brewing storm

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #68 – Puppy fat

A note for Libby addicts: Check out Woodhaven Happenings, where from time to time you will find more posts from other characters.  Want to remind yourself of Who’s Who in Woodhaven? Click here for the cast list!

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode.

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The paediatrician pinches a wad of baby flesh and plunges her syringe into the right thigh of an unsuspecting George.

A couple of seconds of silence while George’s bottom lip sticks out and he fixes me with a reproachful stare. Then, tears squirting from his eyes, he opens his mouth wide and lets rip a bellow that echoes around the small consulting room, the corridor outside, and probably the waiting room as well.

Undeterred, Dr. Lowell picks up another syringe and sticks it in George’s left thigh. The bellows treble.

“I can give Elizabeth her shots now, as well,” she says, as she presses a small, circular Band-Aid over each pinprick. “She also should have had them several weeks ago.”

The last time I fell for this trick and had both twins vaccinated on the same day, I didn’t sleep for three nights, while I paced around the bedroom with one or the other feverish, grizzling baby. Our usual doctor, the lovely Dr. Wong, who is out sick today with a nasty dose of flu, learned from this. She would never make such a silly suggestion.

“I’d rather deal with just one at a time, thanks. We’ll come back next week. I doubt Beth’s going to catch hepatitis B by then.”

Dr. Lowell reaches for another vial and needle as if she hasn’t heard me. “Best to get it over with,” she says. “If you could just take Elizabeth out of the stroller and undress her—”

Dr. Lowell doesn’t have children. She has a chihuahua. I’ve seen her on Main Street, carrying it around in a wicker shopping basket, dressed in a little pink doggie sweater — pooch, that is, not paediatrician. The Coffee Posse warned me long ago that I should avoid this doctor if possible.

Today, thanks to Dr. Wong’s flu, it wasn’t possible.

“No,” I say, more firmly. Instead of unbuckling Beth from the pushchair, I strap George in beside her.

George’s roars have diminished to hiccuping whimpers. I stroke his head and tell him he’s a brave boy and that he can have some ice cream when we get home.

“He’s fat enough already.” The doctor throws the needles in the sharps bin, and snaps off her blue latex gloves.

I’m not sure I’ve heard right. “Excuse me?”

“Childhood obesity is a real problem. He’s already at the 95th percentile for weight. And you need to watch the weight of your older son, too. Neither of them need ice cream.”

Enough. This doctor visit is over. I wheel the pushchair through the doorway, grazing the paint on the door jamb in my rage.

“And I don’t need a chihuahua fashion expert pretending to be Jillian Michaels,” I tell her. “Come on, Jack. Let’s you and me and the twins go to Baskin Robbins and pig out.”

* * *

“And then, the old witch says my boys are fat and they don’t need any ice cream,” I say to Maggie. “So here we are with a gallon of full fat chocolate brownie ice cream to share with you while you tell me all about your holiday.”

We didn’t go to Baskin Robbins, in the end. We went to the supermarket to buy Maggie’s favourite flavour to share with her. She came back from the Seychelles yesterday and I was dying to hear all about it.

Maggie scoops the ice cream into three dishes, and gives the small one to Jack. The largest one she gives to me, because I have to share mine with the twins. Then she pulls a dog bowl out from under the kitchen sink, fills it with a can of premium dog meat, and gives it to Fergus, who is watching her every move with an adoring expression.

He never looks at me like that. Perhaps this would be a good time to approach the subject of her keeping Fergus indefinitely.

“Nothing like ice cream for de-stressing, I find,” Maggie says, shovelling in a mouthful and closing her eyes.

I’m guessing she’s not talking about my own post-doctor stress levels. I’ll mention Fergus another time.

“Was it so hard, spending five days on a tropical island?” I ask.

Another spoonful. Maggie nods.

“I was there as a witness.”

Blimey. I didn’t expect that. Witness to what, I wonder? Drug deals? I’ve heard rumours of Maggie’s hippie past, and there’s sometimes a suspicious whiff of ‘herbal cigarettes’ on her back porch, but this was different. Dangerous, even. You hear about people giving evidence then ending up in neat little dismembered parcels in the bowels of New York’s sewers.

“Will you have to move, or change your identity, or anything like that?” I’d hate to lose my friend just because some drug cartel had it in for her.

Maggie wrinkles her nose and squints at me. “What do you mean?”

“You know — like witness protection.”

Maggie puts her spoon down in her dish. She laughs, and laughs some more. She picks the spoon up, but has to put it down again because she’s still laughing.

On one hand, I’m pleased because I’ve amused Maggie and made her laugh. Laughter is better than ice cream for stress busting. On the other hand, I’m really offended.

“What did I say?” I ask, when she’s quiet at last.

“I wasn’t a witness to a crime,” she says. “I was a witness to a wedding. One of those barefoot beach weddings. My daughter’s.”

And that’s all she would say about it.

But I surmised that, for Maggie at least, it wasn’t a happy occasion.

* * *

As I zip Jack and the twins up into their coats to walk the couple of hundred yards to our house, Maggie says, “You know — don’t take this the wrong way, but that miserable doctor might not have been entirely wrong. You’re struggling to fasten Jack’s zip.”

Et tu, Maggie?

“The zip is stiff, and Jack is not obese. Thank you.” I’d like to say more, but I need to ask her soon if she will take Fergus off my hands. It wouldn’t do to ruin a beautiful friendship at this point.

“No, I didn’t say he was.” She hesitates. “But he’s…hefty, isn’t he? Heftier than he used to be.”

Maggie shouldn’t go on tropical vacations if it makes her this argumentative. I have a perfectly good mother-in-law available if I want to be insulted.

“Even if he is–” I say “— and he’s not — children need it for their growth spurts. They can’t be expected to follow the standard growth charts all the time.”

Maggie holds up her hands, palms outwards, in a “peace” gesture. “Of course not. Anyway, it’s none of my business. Do forgive me, my dear. Tell me, did they like my Christmas presents?”

“They loved them,” I say, stalling for time. They had so many presents from fond grandparents that I can’t instantly recall what Maggie gave them.

“Handpainted, those boxes are. A relic from the time I owned the craft store in Main Street.”

A-ha! Exquisite little wooden boxes with hinged lids, painted with trains and cars for the boys, and fairies and toadstools for Beth. No wonder I couldn’t remember them instantly — I hadn’t seen them since Boxing Day.

“They’re absolutely beautiful,” I say, quite sincerely. “The children loved them. I’ve put them away safely for now, of course,” I add, crossing my fingers behind my back.

Maggie nods. “A good idea.” She opens the front door and looks outside at the descending clouds. “You’d better go before this mist turns to rain. Where’s Fergus…I might have known, in the kitchen, asking for more food! I don’t know where he puts it. Anyone would think he was never fed. Don’t forget to take the rest of your ice cream with you.”

“You keep it,” I say, having just caught sight of my post-Christmas reflection in Maggie’s full-length hallway mirror.

As children, dog, and I hurry home through the rain, I reflect sourly that one member of the family won’t have to diet this January, and can eat as much as his canine heart desires.

Another reason — the final straw, even — why Fergus has to go.

*  *  *

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #69 – This dog’s life takes the biscuit

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #67 – Lights in the rearview mirror

A note for Libby addicts: Check out Woodhaven Happenings, where from time to time you will find more posts from other characters.  Want to remind yourself of Who’s Who in Woodhaven? Click here for the cast list!

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode.

STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net