The siren rings. They are free.

I ask them how their day at school went but they can’t remember.

The youngest is clutching a drawing of a seascape. I spot a chance to connect.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“That’s you being smashed by a wave,” comes the reply.

“Oh. And what’s that you’ve drawn on the sand?”

“A toaster.”

We get into the car. The radio is on and a news story starts before I can turn it down. Shit.

A troubled little voice emerges from the back seat: “Did they just say someone died?”

I say what I always say in these situations, which is “no, no. I’m pretty sure they said dived.” He accepts this, and I wonder what he makes of this world of people making regular, headline-grabbing entries into the water.

We get home. They cast off their shoes which, at this age, are really just receptacles for a metric tonne of playground sand. I empty the shoes’ contents into a pile which I will soon use to lay the foundations for a new patio.

They are suddenly Ravenous. Like “I’m-On-The-5:2-Diet-And-Your-Face-Looks-Delicious” Ravenous. I hurl the contents of the pantry at the advancing horde to save myself. Muesli bars, fruit leathers, crackers, a jar of pasta sauce, 400 grams of coconut cream, a kilo of flour…it all disappears.

Bellies full and fingers sticky, they are recharged. We spend time playing games that are mostly rigged against me. “I spy with my little eye something I saw two days ago” games. “You be paper and I’ll be scissors” games.

There’s laughter and protest, regularly punctuated by the Younger One farting proudly. Then, all of a sudden, I notice urgency in his eyes. I know what this means.

I airlift him to the toilet and pull down his pants. It is too late. I watch helplessly as a sausage of a poo emerges and lands inside his pants. I realise that I’ve never witnessed a defecation at its source, until this moment. If anything can be criticised for being too organic, it is this.

I try in vain to extract his legs without disturbing the fresh deposit. I fail. He emerges from the toilet naked from the waist down.

As we frogmarch toward the bath, we are greeted by our new puppy who starts snapping at my son’s penis, presumably mistaking it for a chew toy. There are screams, tears, barks, growls.

After a bath that is abruptly ended because someone wees in it, I am back in the kitchen playing the part of short order cook for a capricious dictatorial regime.

“I said I wanted egg without the egg on it,” shouts one.

“Is this chicken chicken, or meat chicken?” asks the other suspiciously. Not knowing the right answer, I respond with an ambiguous “yes” and hope for the best.

We read a bedtime story, although the term ‘story’ lost its meaning two years ago. Instead of Lewis, Rowling and Dahl, I recite vital stats from a Pokémon handbook.

“Arbok. Weight: 65.0kg. Height: 3.5m. Type: Poison. Abilities: Intimidate; Shed skin.”

The lights go out. The calls to the Night Desk begin.

“Water, please!”

“Have you seen my torch?”

“I’m still hungry.”

Soon, there’s silence. And in that silence, I think of them and this blessed life of messy-cheating-smelly-sobbing-impatient-happy-beautiful chaos.