Moaning Mother

Me and he who helped create them had a bit of a nice day planned today. We have had a rough couple of weeks and to make up for it we thought we would take baby beautiful out for the day and enjoy the bliss of only having one (rather quiet) child between us.

We made plans to head down to a quaint little village in Hampshire where the plan was to idle the day away in coffee shops and possibly visit a wee little public house for lunch and then progress on for a spot of retail therapy. So the morning started in its typical way, twin girl greeted us with a cheery “I’ve done a poo” and the first sight I saw was a pink upturned bottom in my bathroom waiting to be wiped. Twin boy was found bouncing around downstairs continuing his epic mission to try and complete every jigsaw in the house before we even know he is awake.

We had the usual fights over teeth, dressing etc. Twin girl was practising her teenage attitude by declaring that she didn’t need to do her teeth because they were ‘her teeth’…. however rather than getting irritated and unleashing our shouting selves, myself and he who helped create were so excited by the promise of what lied ahead that we managed to grin and bear it. We even teamed up (girls vs. boys) and raced to get dressed first. (Girls won by the way and we adopted twin boy onto our team so he didn’t have an almighty melt down for not getting his socks on in time.)

Baby beautiful observed all the proceedings silently from her bouncy chair, as usual mentally taking notes for when she is older and can voice her opinion and join in the fun. We piled into the car, managed to sail through the usual seatbelt saga and set off on the happyland road to school, the end was in sight… the school gates were beckoning…. the grownup time was about to start… I could taste my muffin and latte… I could see the steak I was going to consume for lunch whilst beautiful baby slept… I could, I could,

I could feel my phone vibrating in my pocket and I could see he who helped create them’s phone flashing urgently.

 I reached for the handset and unlocked the key pad; the screen read,

                                                                          one new message

and that message read:

As Thames Water are unable to guarantee when the water supply will return we have no option but to close the school today. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

 Apologies? Apologies?

Happyland road turned in the yellow brick road in Return to Oz after it had been torn apart by the Nome King and the Wheelers. The school gates had metaphorically and physically slammed shut on my nice little day out. The reality suddenly became a day in the drizzling rain with all the kids; I could now only taste the bitter scent of disappointment on my tongue instead of my lovely chocolate chip muffin.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore my children but I also quite like my time away and twin boy and girl were equally distraught by the change in plan and their inability to go and be educated; twin girl was especially concerned by the loss of her school dinner. Twin boy had been planning to build a tower completely out of loo rolls and although there is a lot of poo in our house apparently there were not enough rolls at home to meet his architectural plans.

Upon hearing the news baby beautiful quickly shut her eyes as she foresaw the emotional fallout. He who helped create them turned into grumpy old man, and twin boy and girl became a team of whiners.

I’d like to say we had a lovely day – and we tried but we failed, we tried to go to Legoland and some fool has decided to only open it at weekends in November.  Clearly they never realised the impact that decision would have on my marital bliss….

We all made up at the end of the day and the kids went to sleep smiling (me and he who helped create them are just beginning to enjoy each others company again) and as twin boy said

 We still have the weekend to look forward to……

 Wish me luck