Mums log: Playdate: somethingth of May.
I drift half-asleep, fuel reserve are low. I pull against the extra gravity of Sunday morning, drawn to the small, square button on the machine. I push it and slowly it begins to fire up. I've just finished loading fresh ground coffee when the alarm goes off...
MUMMEEE!!!! It's the Stout Controller, something is wrong with his bus. The cat is throwing up. I hesitate - clean up cat-sick or fix the bus? The cat starts to eat it's vomit. I opt for the bus.
Several minutes later the bus is fixed and the smell of warm coffee beans powers me back into the kitchen to press the button. The relief of seeing the coffee flow into the cup is marred only by the realisation that I have trodden in the remains of the cat's stomach contents.
Several hours later I am wrestling with my printer in the cellar as a series of birthday cards are printed, one for a party south of London. The alarm goes off...
WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THAT CELLAR??? It's the frog, left alone too long with the Controller, he has experienced total systems failure.
I take the escape-pod and bundle the Stout One off to the party leaving the frog to stew in his own juices. The Controller doesn't want to go to the party. He doesn't want to go home. He really really wants to go to the party. I launch. The alarm goes off - he's dropped his bus.
We drive, him complaining, me ignoring and the bus clattering around in the hold with every turn. By the time we reach the party he is asleep and when he wakes up he no longer wants to go to the party.
We spend 30 minutes at soft play, him ignoring all his friends and clutching me dramatically. He won't play. Eventually he wanders a few feet away and plays with some balls. The alarms sound, everyone off to eat. He won't leave soft play. He won't eat. Eventuay he eats crisps. He eats a biscuit. He wins sweeties in Pass-the-Parcel. He joins in. He starts to play. The party ends.
The alarm sounds.
And that, my friends, is how I find myself sitting by myself at a soft-play in Leatherhead at 5:30pm on a Sunday.
Leatherhead, the final frontier.
14 comments:
I'm 61 and never had kids. Never changed a diaper. Like cats though, dogs vomit, and I step in it. Other times they pee, and I step in that too. I definitely need to follow my long dead mother's advice to get my head "out of the clouds."
Much of this sounds so, so, so familiar!
I really like your sense of humor and your writing style! Wish I can write like that.
I have a take on this - soft play centres are very very bad. On a Sunday ? That's got to be worse than Friday afternoon. I'm glad he won at pass the parcel xx
Snowbrush - Animals, kids - it's all about cleaing up the poop and the sick hey! Good thing we love them so much...
Lisa - ah yes; that would be because you have, er, a three year old and pets?
Day-dreaming - thanks so much! I bet you can though.
Belgravia wife - yes, they are awful, but he's 3 and he loves them... I just want to bathe him in ultra-violet rays and take him for a run in the park afterwards to get the dirt and general sense of claustrophobia out of him...
Oh dear how exhausting...but, your cat eats it's own puke? Seriously? I want a cat like that! My cats expect me to eat it...
Oh I know, those soft play places are the worst, especially for us! And yet the birthday party invitations just keep rolling in, don't they?
DJ Kirby said: "your cat eats it's own puke? Seriously? I want a cat like that! My cats expect me to eat it..."
If you get tired of having to eat it yourself, you can always buy a schnauzer.
I try to think of a happy place - not easy though. Thanks so much for the aubergine tip - as I was writing mine I decided it would be super to revamp my recipe - YUM YUM YUM !
DJ! Eugh!!! I hope you don't comply!!! Don't all cats eat their own sick?
Nappy Valley Housewife - they do indeed - but it's not all bad really, is it?
Snowbrush - they'll eat anything though, including the catfood... am I wrong?
Belgravia Wife - I've made that aubergine recipe tonight as a matter of fact... just going round to yours to see what you did!
"they'll eat anything though, including the catfood... am I wrong?"
Yes, they will eat the cat food too, and if you take a nap, they'll think you are dead and start in on you. I trusted my last girl schnauzer with everything but food. If I locked her in the car with my groceries, she would have them all open by the time I got back.
P.S. Just kidding about the nap thing.
I'm with you...I'd fix the bus over cleaning up cat puke anytime. In my house though, the dogs will clean it up for me, and then eat the bus for dessert.
Snowbrush and Cactus... I feel the need to answer you both together... sometimes I wish we had a dog. Our floor would be a lot cleaner... so, I suspect, would my son's face... (licky licky)
Brilliant! And sounds all too familiar!!
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