Dear Neighbors,
We are the new family that moved in next door and I just wanted to say “Hi.”
And also “Sorry.”
I would have come ’round with baked goods and a big smile, maybe even freshly squeezed lemonade and some flowers from my garden. I thought about all of this, I did. I even went on Pinterest for you and planned what rustic ribbon would be tied around my basket of goodies but… well… kids.
You may have heard my children. They are that deafening noise that didn’t use to be there before. I know that the old guy that lived in our house previously was a lovely man. The others on the street tell us that regularly (with that “I really hope you can live up to him” look in their eyes), and I am sure that the loudest noise he ever made was the whooshing of his water sprinklers, and the only mess he made was the bright pink falling petals of his bougainvillea… which you knew would be cleaned up the following morning. Well, I’m afraid we are here to disappoint.
Let me explain what is happening on the other side of your hedge:
We are not mass murderers…
That noise you hear at approximately 7pm on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday evenings is not the ritualistic screams of kidnapped virgins being slaughtered for our Satanic weekly sacrifices. No, they are my two girls having their hair washed.
“My eyes, my ears, noooo, stop” and repeat for 5 minutes (which feels like 5 hours) is just me very gently applying tepid water and children’s shampoo to their little heads while shielding their eyes and making soothing noises. Not that you would know it.
We have not been burgled…
My children leave the front door open and all the lights on and all the windows ajar every day as a matter of course. And the chaos you see inside is what happens when my youngest isn’t happy about something. Or my husband can’t find his car keys. And that wailing, that isn’t my scream of despair because all my worldly possessions have been stolen. No. It’s just me wondering if my house will ever look like my Pinterest boards of perfection.
We are not housing mental asylum escapees…
They’re my children. The repetitive shrill cry of “willy, willy, hanky, manky, wanky (they don’t know what it means, so I’m saying nothing), poo poo face, bum bum” is not some poor person with incurable Tourette’s. It’s my four-year-old winding up her sister. And don’t look out your window as she is probably doing something unsavoury, like flashing her knickers or wiping a snotty finger on her sister’s face.
We are not having a garage sale…
That huge pile of broken shit in the garden is ours, and we want to keep it, we just haven’t had time to find the right place for it so it’s staying there. Looking ugly. Littering what was once a bright and vibrant garden – which now has broken Barbie doll arms clawing their way out of the soil where tulips once grew, and a pretty smattering of popcorn in place of the daisies.
That’s not a joyrider’s abandoned car in the driveway…
It’s mine. Yes, I know the hubtcap is missing on one of the wheels. Yes, the scratch down the side has been there forever and will never be fixed because everything else seems more urgent to spend money on than that crap-mobile (and I will only add to the dents and scratches anyway, so why bother?) And yes, when you peer inside, the filth and disarray within is all mine too. It’s not that a couple of spotty youths have stolen my vehicle and had a party inside, nope, that’s what two children can do in a week… okay, a month… okay, I never vacuum and clean the inside of my car. I don’t even vacuum my house!
That’s not Fagin’s gang of dirty orphaned thieves running around…
They are my children. Don’t fear them, they don’t bite (actually, the four-year-old does). And they look like that, not because we can’t afford to buy them decent clothes and they have been rummaging through the sacks of discarded bin bags outside the charity shop, but because they have dressed themselves. And I don’t have the energy to argue. And although I have explained, in patient tones and minute detail, that pattern goes with plain and like colours go together and everything matches with blue or white – they still look like that. So my eldest is sporting an unusual hair do because she learned to braid her hair this week and her top is too tight and her trousers too long because she likes the pictures on them; and my youngest is wearing MY heels, on the wrong feet, and is now stuck in the toy-littered garden mud while wearing a bikini, a princess tiara and a cape. And that’s fine, because they aren’t arguing and I don’t have to wash those clothes for the next day. I will just hide or burn them.
And finally – that silence?
I haven’t finally lost it and smothered my family…
No, that is the sound of post-bedtime. That is the moment my husband and I collapse on the sofa, breathe a sigh of relief, look at each other (avoid looking at the mess around us) and clink wine glasses. Then, once sufficiently inebriated, we go to bed. But not for wild noisy sex, don’t worry, because that kind of craziness causes KIDS. And look what happened last time!
So, my lovely neighbors…sorry.
We are THAT family. But hey, every street has to have one and at least you know that I have dedicated a Pinterest board to you and one day I will make you lemonade and cookies. One day. I promise.
Lady Lolita is one of three writers for The Glass House Girls – a women’s online magazine that says what YOU think. She’s sometimes blunt, sometimes shocking, but always funny. Lady Lolita is a heady mix of Latino passion, London gobbiness and a splash of Girl Power…with a cheeky mojito always within reach.
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