The full moon conspires to bring Wee Lad tidal wave of destruction

I’m putting it down to the full moon, not the fact that I may have taken the eye off the ball with them childer over the past few days. And the lunacy that usually infects only the Wee Lad to the exception of his apparently more sensible older brother was rampant these last few days.

The tidal surge of bad behaviour left a trail of destruction in its wake, with two disgruntled friends, a smashed phone and a migraine for my troubles the weekend.

I recall when the Big Lad was only a few months old and the Spring full moon came around. I was stunned to see this beautiful little baby turn into practically a werewolf, howling like a hound and there was nothing that would comfort him. The same would happen, to a lesser extent, most months when the lunar light shone at its brightest and most powerful, reaching into the large percentage of water that brains are made of, particularly baby brains, and pulling it like the Atlantic Ocean.

Needless to say, the effect of the lunar grip was stronger on the Wee Lad, but, by the time he came around, I was well used to it. There are days of lunacy in our house every month, coinciding with the full moon, which was at its peak at harvest and Spring time. So last week’s massive harvest moon had the usual effect on the Wee Lad, with the lunacy affecting his bigger brother in spades too.

On Friday, my much-loved child minder was ill and unable to mind the kids. I asked a couple of friends to look after them while I went to the launch of the cycle in memory of Garda Tony Golden. When I had finished work, I went to the friends’ place and found the two lads gadding about like unbroken horses.

Both women looked stressed, with one declaring that she had never met ‘ two buckaroos’ like them. I was thoroughly shame-faced, particularly when the Lads refused, in front of my friends, to do anything I said. There was a ‘stern talking-to’ in the car on the way to Gam Gam’s house, with the Big Lad declaring that he didn’t know what was wrong with him. The Wee Lad knows well what’s wrong with him, but, sure, there’s nothing that can be done about it.

At the Gam Gam’s, things calmed down a bit, particularly when I absent-mindedly handed the Wee Lad my phone to play on. He has developed a habit of putting it into the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms, and, after about an hour, I asked him where it was. It wasn’t in his pocket, it was in my handbag, he informed me.

I should have known then that there was trouble afoot. I looked in the bag and there was the phone, replete with a multi-lined crack on the screen, the started at the top right-hand corner and went depressingly far. It still worked, kinda, but it was really beyond help. I realised that I was almost at the end of a two year contract and headed on Saturday to the mobile phone provider to stake my claim to a new device.

And rather than standing in the store for the 45 minutes it took to get everything sorted, the pair of ‘ buckaroos’ not only went haring around the shop, lifting everything that wasn’t nailed down, they then took themselves out of the shop and careered around the shopping centre, jumping around like lunatics.

Even the ever-helpful men in the shop were looking at me funny when, for the millionth time, I was clicking my fingers to absolutely no avail. The evil eye I deploy on these occasions may as well have been a smile for all the impact it had. I took the new phone and hurried away, telling the pair of them that I was ashamed of them.

Back home, as I struggled with yet another technology upgrade, the pair were running about, asking for this and that and whinging when they didn’t get it. A migraine started pounding and got such a grip of me that by the time the Husband came home from work, the kids and I were in bed, sleeping by the light of the full moon.