Home Alone

Italy's Luke McLean. Apparently,
he can spell 'lasagne', so he's Italian.*

So I'm in charge of my two daughters this weekend. Mom is off to the nation's capital to 'watch' Wales v. Italy in the Six Nations Tournament. For my friends who live outside the UK, Six Nations is an 8-week rugby union tournament when the best players in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and France play to see who's the best team in Europe and Italy plays guys like Kristopher Burton, Paul Derbyshire and Luke McLean in the hopes of someday not being the whipping boys of the Northern Hemisphere. For the players on their respective national teams, it's an opportunity to apply their skills at the highest levels of competition, and outside of the Rugby World Cup, I'd imagine nothing means more to a rugger than to claim the Six Nations title. For the fans, it's an 8-week piss-up and an annual excuse to be in a pub from 10am on Saturday until lunchtime Sunday in the name of sport. And, seeing how my espoused has had exactly one night of alcoholic consumption in the last 18 months, I'm expecting her to make the most of it. Which probably means she'll be asleep in the corner of some pub somewhere by about halftime.

So while she's off bnoozing (boozing and snoozing, of course), I will be home with a 2-year-old who seems to have developed an inability to focus on anything other than Fireman Sam (LIVE!) for more than a minute and a half and a six-month-old who I'm sure would gum me to death if she a) had the chance or b) could sit up. My coping strategy depends a great deal on the following, the absence of any one of which could result in me being overrun by toddlers and/or eaten by my cat:

• Keep them entertained. I have a tv repairman on retainer for the weekend. He has promised to supply me with a working television and/or live Fireman Sam actors upon request. I have also secretly learned to juggle shiny objects and cats.
• Keep them well-fed. The fact that I am off bread for Lent means that we have plenty of stale pieces of it in the house. I live in Wales, so water should not be a problem. So that's the basics covered. Besides, worse comes to worst: I've seen my kids - they could stand to lose a few pounds.
• Keep them well-rested. I have invested in several hundred metres of black-out blinds. While they sleep tonight, I plan to darken out every window in the house. Hopefully this will convince (trick is such an ugly word) their body-clocks that we now live in the Arctic Circle and being awake will not be necessary until mid-April.
• Keep them dry. I've adopted the US military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy and will assume that they both are urine and faeces free until they can articulate a coherent message to me that they are otherwise. If they can't ASK for me to change their nappies, then it can't be that bad, right...?

I think that pretty much covers all my bases. Right now the only potential failure in my carefully considered plan of action is if they don't like watching rugby on television. If that turns out to be the case (or I cannot convince Darling Daughter #1 that Sam Warbuton is Norman Price's cousin), then I need to find something else to occupy 300 minutes between now and Sunday afternoon.

Also: is 2 too young to be sent on a beer run?

I'm reasonably confident that most of us will survive.





* I had to look up how to spell 'lasagne', thus proving my on-going theory that I'm 7/8th Irish.