All hail the Zhu Zhu Pet

School holidays + Winter = Shitsville.

The kids' in-built weather beacons have alerted them to the fact that it's too cold and/or wet and/or gale force windy to go outside.

Therefore, Miss5 is deathy bored with all possessions - hers and mine.  Even my last resort of opening up my make up cabinet to her did not impress.  She wants to go to the park.  She wants to go to the park despite me warning her that her legs would most definitely get freezer burn as she went down the slide.

Mstr2 is whining for the sandpit endlessly.  ENDLESSLY I TELL YOU!

Miss2 has learnt to open the door, and regularly rips it open to rouse me from my self-induced survival mechanism stupor with a blast of icy air.  Thankfully, she hasn't worked out how to open the screen door as yet, so I don't have to hope she can't run very fast to the end of the driveway, before I find a jacket, umbrella and boots to protect me from the awful weather before I run out after her.

So I've spent a lot of time hiding in the toilet this past week.  It's about the only room of the house that I can hide in.  If I get in there without the kids noticing.  If they see me go in, they bust on in after me, refusing to leave, fighting over who gets to flush when I'm done.

We're a close family like that....

Alas, I was on my last raw nerve.  My final straw was being yanked.

Enter the Zhu Zhu pet.

Shamrock : My #1 Deputy



Miss5 got it for her birthday last year.  She loved it dearly for all of 11 days, then she tossed it in a drawer.  Never to be seen again.  Only to be heard making the odd muffled squeak and growl through the drawer.

The twins got into her room the other day and found it.  Cue Miss5's inconsolable and disgusted whining about how the twins have taken her favourite Zhu Zhu pet.  The same one she shut in a drawer in October last year.

Amidst all their squabbling and my squealing (last nerve being shredded, remember), the lurid green Zhu Zhu Pet drops to the floor.

Instantly, it comes to life.  Miss5 shrieks and squeals in a laughy kind of way (she has many shrieks and squeals.  Her most used method of communication is a combination of shrieks and squeals, so it's important to distinguish that this was the happy and positive kind).

The twins stop dead in their tracks.  DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS.  Not a sound, not a movement.

It was like 9 seconds of blissful silence, save for Miss5's joyous shrieky squealy yelping.

Then they ran.  It was like watching two oversized teddy bears shuffling along (on account of me being too lazy to get them out of their all-in-one pyjama's).

This thing had them backed into a corner quicker than I have ever been able to round them up.  I shit you not, it was like a Zhu Zhu pet versus toddler rodeo, and this tiny green fury thing was kicking ass.

Naturally, I stepped in.  I picked the toy up, calmed the twins, and reinstated a sense of  frenzied chaos  calm.

Not 10 minutes later, another disturbance / disagreement / civil war.  None of them listened as I  yelled  ranted  raved  calmly tried to resolve the situation.

So I put the Zhu Zhu pet back on the floor.  Off it went, and so did they.  Again, this thing had their backs to the wall.  Again, there was silence.  The kind of silence I normally only get to savour on midnight toilet runs while the rest of the house is asleep.

And so it has been for the last couple of days - whenever law and order needs to be restored in the house, I bring in the big guns of parental discipline : The Zhu Zhu Pets.

Note - I said Pets, as in more than one.  Because I went and bought 2 more once I realised how effective they were at toddler taming.  Best $22 I've ever spent.

The newest members of my kid-wrangling security patrol



I've already put Zhu Zhu Puppies on layby for Christmas.  I could quite literally tune out and sip my  Vodka  ice tea in peace, with these guarding the doors on top of the three Zhu Zhu Pet babysitters patrolling the toy room.