The milk of human kindness might have turned a bit sour at home
DOUBLE TROUBLE FOR a first Time DAD Of Twins
The weekend routine has evolved over the years into a rigid certainty of times and tasks. The day starts at 7am, when I take the twins downstairs for breakfast, even though they’re awake before that, I’m refusing to admit their presence whatever chaos is created.
I deliver a cup of tea to Victoria at 7.30am, while she reclines in bed and pretends to ‘work’ on her laptop.
For the following two hours, I entertain, dress and care for them, until I’m granted the freedom to go to the gym for a very precise hour.
However, last weekend, a weakness in the system emerged, when I served the twins a mega mix of Shreddies and corn flakes with a Weetabix on top and delivered tea to Victoria.
Within minutes, her Ladyship appeared at the door looking both disgusted and anxious. It was an unusual sight to see her our out of bed and not ‘working’ on a weekend morning, so I knew something was very wrong.
She brandished her cup of tea at me and cried, ‘this milk is off, tell me you haven’t fed them sour milk’.
I tried to calm the situation and explained I’d had some in my coffee and it was fine. That was until we tipped the remaining milk in the sink, and it had a much thicker consistency than you might expect.
By this point, the twins had long finished and all that remained were two empty cereal bowls on the table. It certainly looked like I’d poisoned my own children, but in my defence, an
operation up my nose 10 years ago meant my taste and smell could be sporadic. Generally, it was fine, but I did have a few blind spots and this morning was one of those.
Naturally, we both began Googling ‘sour milk poisoning’ where the general message was it wasn’t ideal, although one brave nutritional website in America argued it was a good thing for stomach bacteria.
It was decided to adopt a new milktesting policy, where Victoria would forensically examine all dairy products on a weekend before I served them, but it was a little late because Thomas was sick roughly 16 hours later.
It was my duty to phone the nursery and explain his absence on Monday morning, so I explained he’d been unexpectedly unwell in the night, to which they replied that there must be a bug because five other children were also sick.
To their surprise, I replied with an unintentionally excited, ‘really, wow, brilliant’, in my relief at being absolved of complete responsibility, even if a little trust had gone and my days as milk monitor were definitely behind me.