Kung Hei Fat Choi

My five year old came buzzing home from school today, bag full of Chinese money envelopes, lanterns, dragons and blossom tree card, head full of animals racing and mouth full of chatter, chatter, chatter!

He was desperate to clean the house. Yes, clean the house, hurrah for school eh?

So armed with a broom,

‘To sweep away the bad luck Mummy!’

And a sponge and spray and of course the obligatory two year old (there is nothing he can do or say without a little follower) he set to work. The work seemed to involve a lot of spray, a lot of water and a lot of throwing things in the air!!

Keen to let this new passion for cleaning continue as anyone who has ever visited my house would appreciate! I turned my back for a minute and chaos! The little one completely caught up in the exhilaration, babbling away mop in hand had caused quite the puddle in the kitchen. I managed to get the sponges and water off them and tried to replace with very absorbent kitchen towel and walked behind them.....

But the excitement didn’t stop there, we were commanded by the five year old to decorate the house in red

 ‘to scare away the evil spirits Mummy!’

so we painted a giant red dragon on some old packaging paper and pinned up the lanterns...... I had to draw the line at painting the front door red which he was quite insistent to the point of near tantrum about and was not too impressed by my, ‘Well the bricks are red honey that should scare them any way!’

My partner was thrilled they were interested in something he knew a little something about and got out all his eBay paraphernalia, ancient coins, tea cups and other special things.....

They were allowed to look, begrudgingly touch but definitely take to school for show and tell!

But he did promise to take them to the celebrations in the city centre at the weekend.

‘I bet we do get the prize, Mummy!’ the five year old giggled!

‘Prize?’  I said, ‘There isn’t a prize’

Hoping a team of teaching staff from the local primary weren’t actually going to turn up to run a white-gloved finger along my tatty skirting boards!

‘There is Mummy!’ he said in a voice dripping with, ‘Oh how silly you are Mummy!’

‘Are you sure, sweetheart?’

‘Oh yes!’ he assured me, ’a big trophy with a dragon on it, the emperor will give it to us’

‘The Emperor of China?’  I asked

‘Yes, Mummy!’ in a voice that implied who else?

Well I guess it was only last month I told him Father Christmas came to our home, ate a mince pie drunk a glass of wine and gave Rudolph a couple of bites of a carrot. Why wouldn’t the Emperor of China pop in with a trophy in recognition of his hard work?!

Kung Hei Fat Choy!!