We're all going on a bloody holiday tra la la la la la la

I am frequently drawnt to exclaim that I may, for one reason or another, have lost my marbles. I am swiftly coming to the conclusion that I don't in fact ever manage to get them back but rather they are permanently gone and I should stop bemoaning their loss and just get on with it.

We're in Canada at the moment, a move designed to placate the aged Ps who have not seen the scion of our loins for over a year and, given that this is nearly half his life, are clearly deserving of a visitation. I imagine that after this they'll probably be quite happy not to see him for another year... it'll probably take at least that long to put their house back together and coax the cat from under the bed.

We left on the Saturday and on Friday I decided to broadcast a call for a picnic in the park. Great idea. Sun, grass, kids running around, brilliant. Come Friday morning it was raining and several parents had dropped out so I inflated the bouncy castle and told everyone that we'd just be at our flat, expecting three or four drop ins. I forgot that it was a bank holiday. In the end there were 10 other children and 13 other parents and total, utter chaos; Dads drinking beer in the rain while toddlers threw themselves at the bouncy castle unsupervised, Mums drinking wine and tea in the livingroom while every single toy the spud owns was upended and thrown about and muddy footprints marked a trail from one end of the place to the other. It was great though, everyone had a brilliant time and I had dishwashers and tidier-uppers and in the end after everyone was gone the spud fell happily to sleep while I mopped floors and packed for our trip.

Saturday dawned and the spud was beside himself with glee at the expectation of an aeroplane. I had packed a whole carry-on bag full of treats and toys and things to keep him occupied and we were really hoping for some sleep out of him however during the entire 10 hour flight he was the definition of the sort of child you just don't want to be anywhere near on a plane. He kicked and pulled the seat in front of him, he screamed and ran and shouted and sang and made his new noisy toy plane go off so many times that the batteries actually ran down (I didn't know it was going to be that loud when I gave it to him). He went to the loo about 100 times just to play with the taps and he ate the entire way across. Again, however it worked out ok, he slept in the car on the way home and then woke up and spent the afternoon charming the family and went to bed at 7:30pm just like at home.

So here we are, three days in, chaos settling down and we're sort of adjusted. We've decided to just give into the madness and let him get on with things and he's doing really very well, if one doesn't mind getting up at 4am to read 'The Little Engine That Could' a dozen times.