Fired

We're watching Gordon Ramsey's kitchen nightmare, which has become family TV viewing time. Some of the kitchen staff are not performing and have just been fired in the usual dramatic way of Gordon and US reality TV.

S (6 y/o): Mammy, if we started a restaurant, the first thing we'd do is fire Daddy.

Mammy: But we could get Daddy to do all the cooking.

S (after some brief consideration): Well, maybe he'd last one day before we fired him.

Good to know that my children have faith in me.

F**king Windows

S (6 y/o) is playing on the living room floor. It's also the first really sunny morning in weeks, so all the windows are open. Mammy is working on something on her laptop from the couch. It's not going well, as sometimes things on computers are want to do.

Mammy (frustratedly): F**king Windows!

Siún (helpfully): Do you want me to close the windows, Mammy?

Marbles...

Tidying is happening. The 11 y/o is picking up the things that have been distributed by her siblings. I'm working from home and hear a series of what sounds like marbles falling on to a wooden floor and rolling off in multiple directions.

11 y/o (frustrated): Who put marbles in a hat?

I'm not even surprised. A hat seems like a perfectly reasonable storage container for marbles.

Screaming...

Just another normal day, where two of my children are happily shouting at one and other at full volume for no particular reason except that they are very emotionally invested in whatever game they are playing, and they have lots of pent up energy.

Me (to the children involved): Please stop screaming. You're right next to one and other, and you both have good hearing.

S (6 y/o, without missing a beat, and as condescending as only a 6 y/o can be): Daddy, you're not in charge of screaming.

Returns to shouting at her brother, making up the lost screaming time she had to use to explain exactly what I am not in charge of in this house.

Go, go, go, come ON!

The 9 y/o is still putting on her shoes and it's now five minutes after the time she should have left the house to catch her school bus. Due to Covid-19, they all have different bus times / schooling arrangements at the moment. To 'help', her sister and brother engage in an impromptu dance and chant at the other end of the living room:

7y/o & 11 y/o (Chanted, with dancing):
Go! Go! Go! Come ON!

Go! Go! Go! Come ON!

Go! Go! Go! Come ON!

11 y/o (spoken so fast it fits in the same timing as the lines above):

Seriously, move your ass or you're going to be late!

The Server of Life...

We're walking home from the shop, and S (6 y/o) steps in front of me and just stops to take a look back - in case we abandoned her or something, I imagine. My wife laughs and points out that it's cute that S just stops every now and then and cuts me off. As we carry on:

S (6 y/o, with great disappointment): I can't cut you off... from the server of life...

I wonder if she and her siblings are spending too long on the internet.