Chapter One
It was one month since Mark Taylor, the newest addition to the Taylor family had been born. In his first month of life his father, Tim, had tried his best to limit the amount of traveling he did in his job as a salesman for Binford Tools but the time had now come for him to hit the road again leaving his wife, Jill home alone with their three boys, four-year-old Brad, three-year-old Randy and baby Mark of course. Tim was worried about leaving her alone but knew what a wonderfully competent mother she was, apart from her cooking he thought to himself… which was a little less than competent, but apart from that she was great. So that Monday morning, he departed for Illinois. It was just going to be a one-day trip, he'd be back later that night and he was sure Jill and the boys would be absolutely fine. How much trouble could three little kids be?
As she waved Tim off, Jill turned around and steeled herself. "Ok Jill, you can do this!" she said to herself. So far so good, all was quiet in the Taylor house. All three boys were fast asleep. She went to the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee, then took it over to the couch "Well, this isn't so bad so far" she thought eyeing the unread magazine on the coffee table. She leaned forward to reach it when suddenly she heard a wail from upstairs… that would be? ….Mark… Jill put the magazine and the coffee down, slopping some of the coffee onto the table as it landed "have to wipe that up later" she thought to herself and ran upstairs. She changed the baby and settled him back down on the couch for his first feed of the day. As he began to suckle she heard another shout from upstairs,
"Mommy!"
"Brad!" She shouted, recognising her eldest son's voice immediately "Come downstairs! I'm just feeding the baby!"
"Mommy! Randy's being annoying!"
"Come. Down. Stairs" She hollered back. She felt she was being so loud half of Detroit could come running down the stairs, but there wasn't much else she could do. She was currently tied to a hungry baby.
The older boys pushed and shoved their way down the stairs, hair messy and sleep dishevelled. They would have looked sweet, observed Jill had it not been for the angry expressions they both wore on their faces.
"Randy keeps taking my Action Man!" complained Brad
"I do not!" retorted Randy
"Tell him to stop touching my stuff!" wailed Brad
"ok, ok boys settle down" said Jill quickly, sensing imminent physical escalation between the brothers. "I'll just finish feeding Mark and then I'll get you some breakfast"
"But I'm hungry nooooowwww!" wailed Randy.
"Want to watch some cartoons?" Jill offered him the remote hopefully. He snatched it as a starving man would a sandwich and jumped onto the couch next to her.
After breakfast, Jill managed to get all the boys dressed. Observing their neat little outfits and freshly brushed hair, she felt quite pleased with herself "See, you can do this Jill!" she congratulated herself.
She placed Mark in his bouncer and took the boys to the table to do some painting. After ten minutes there was so much paint everywhere it looked more like the boys were attempting to redecorate the entire living room so she called a halt to that activity. It was bad enough when Tim took on his painting projects, she didn't need anymore paint splashed everywhere. "I'm not sure what I was thinking there" she thought as she eyed the now paint splattered boys in front of her. They didn't look quite so neat and tidy now.
"Why don't you go and play outside on your climbing frame for a bit?" she offered, then added "but it's cold today so let's get your coats on"
"No" said Randy defiantly. Jill gritted her teeth. 'No' seemed to be Randy's favourite word these days.
"Randy! It's cold out there and if you want to play you need to put your coat on"
"Don't want to"
"Well then, no playing outside" she snapped
"But I want tooooo!" yelled Brad.
Jill looked from one brother to the other.
"Right fine!" She grabbed Randy's coat and physically stuffed his arms in. It was like wrestling with an angry octopus.
"Nooo!" screamed the now very irate, red-faced toddler. Jill could feel the beads of sweat running down her back. "How hard should this be?" she asked herself bundling both boys out of the door.
Three minutes later Brad ran into the house "I need the bathroom!" he shouted urgently. Jill wrestled him back out of his coat and boots and watched him from the doorway as behind her Randy swung precariously from the top bar of the climbing frame "Randy, be careful up there!" she called. "I am Mommy!" he said with that disarming smile of his that Jill knew only too well probably meant he was being anything but careful. "I mean it Randy! I don't want you to – thud!" Too late. The boy was on the ground howling. Turning to check that Brad was still managing ok, she went back to Randy, picked him up and dusted him off. No major harm done she observed quickly checking him over. "Not that you'd know it from the noise he's making" she thought.
"I don't want to play outside anymore!" he hiccupped between sobs.
Brad walked back out, coat successfully back on but boots now on the wrong feet "But I want to play outside!" he squealed then added "You always spoil everything Randy!" and gave his brother a rough push. Randy staggered back, then righting himself and with a force belying his tiny stature, pushed Brad right back. Sensing an imminent injury approaching, Jill immediately stepped between them. "Stop!" she yelled wearily.
Everyone froze as a loud "wahhhh!" came from inside the house. All the commotion outside had now woken up the baby.
"In! Both of you!" she ordered.
For once, both boys meekly followed her inside the house.
"How can you be hungry again?" she asked Mark as she settled down on the couch with him and opened her top to feed him. The older boys, sensing defeat, settled to play with their toy cars. Five minutes of blissful peace ensued, during which time Jill was at least able to observe, if not actually drink her long-abandoned coffee from earlier that morning. How was it only 10am? She thought to herself "It feels like it must be at least 5pm".
She finished feeding and burping Mark and placed him safely on the couch beside her. She turned around to see Randy staring at her. He clambered onto her lap and wrapped his arms and legs around her like a koala, giving Mark a sly push just to make sure that he knew exactly whose Mommy he was dealing with. He rested his head on her chest and sucked his thumb. Jill stroked his soft hair, "Randy, I need to get up and tidy up all of the breakfast things" she sighed, but his answer was predictably "no." He removed his thumb from his mouth and gave a loud, very fake cough "I'm sick mommy so you have to stay with me!" Satisfied that a successful case had been made for his mother's full attention, he settled back down onto her chest. Jill had to try hard not to laugh out loud at his little ploy. Randy often suffered with chest infections, that was true, but not today. Today he was fine, she knew that, today he just wanted her attention.
"I think you'll be ok" she laughed "let's go and get some cookies" and with that Randy's mystery illness suddenly disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
Jill wiped down the table. Lunch had been another chaotic affair. She felt pretty certain that more food had landed on the floor than had actually been eaten. She looked up to see Randy dancing from one foot to the other,
"Randy, do you need to go to the bathroom?"
"No!" he giggled and ran off upstairs after Brad. Jill went to follow after him but was stopped in her tracks by Mark's wail. "Oh, poor baby! Are you hungry again?" She ran back to the living room and picked him up "Come on" she said soothingly and settled down on the couch to feed him.
Moments later she heard Brad's predictable shout from upstairs, "Mommy! Randy wet his pants again!"
Jill cursed. It didn't take a genius to work out why her previously reliably potty trained three-year-old was acting up like this. Jill had invested in a parenting book where she'd read all about this kind of acting-out behaviour after the arrival of a new sibling. The book suggested giving lots of patience and praise. Jill tried to remember that, although right now her patience with the boy felt a little in short supply. She turned her attention back to Mark. Randy ran back downstairs, now, Jill observed, minus all of his clothes.
"Where did your clothes go?!" She asked, feeling another wave of irritation with him. Randy just shrugged and climbed up onto the chair in the corner and started to bounce up and down "Randy! Get down from there this instant!" she shouted. Mark, surprised by the sudden shouting started to cry. Still ignoring her, Randy continued to jump "Mommy! Mommy! Watch this!" He bounced from one chair to the other. Jill fixed him with what she hoped was her sternest glare "Randy! Get down!"
Oblivious to her instruction Randy continued "Do you want to know a secret?" He asked, giggling. "Uh oh!" Thought Jill observing the glint in his eye, "I'm not sure I'm going to like this."
"What is it Randy?" she shouted over Mark's cries
"Brad" he said simply as if that was an entirely sufficient answer.
"Brad what?" she could hear the impatience creeping into in her voice
Randy just giggled and bounced on the chair, seemingly in a world of his own.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door,
"Come in!" shouted Jill. "I'm trapped on the couch by a screaming baby"
The door opened cautiously and in walked Wilson holding Brad by the hand,
"Hidee ho there Neighbourette!" he greeted her warmly
"Hi Wilson" she tried to smile back but she didn't feel very smiley right now "What's going on? Brad?"
Brad looked sheepishly at the floor.
"Well Jill, I found young Master Taylor here walking down the street, he tells me that he was going to take himself to the park"
"On his own?!" Jill knew she was raising her voice now
"Brad! Why would you do that?! How did you even get out of the house? You're not allowed out on your own! That's a really dangerous thing to do!"
"But I wanted to go out and play Mommy and you were too busy to take me! You're always too busy since he came along!" Brad thrust an accusatory finger at Mark.
Wilson surveyed the scene of carnage that lay before him; in Jill's arms was one screaming baby rapidly turning puce, in another corner of the room was one naked toddler bouncing on the furniture, there seemed to be what looked like paint smears on the carpet, some coffee spilt on the table and finally the remnants of lunch scattered. He smiled kindly.
"Challenging day?"
Jill looked around the living room and saw the place as Wilson must have seen it "Is it that obvious?" She said with a defeated sigh "It's been the worst!"
"Oh Jill, I think it might be prudent to share these woes with Tim "as the proverb says 'a problem shared is a problem halved'"
"Yeah? Well in my case, there are three problems in particular and I'm not sure it's going to be possible to halve them…" she said eyeing up the naked toddler.