Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

Thursday 3 May 2012

Watch out 'a family' is about...

Children and 'fun' days out normally end in tears and I'm not talking about the children here!

We took Emily to the Peppa Pig show at our local theatre, an enjoyable experience for Emily. Not so much for myself and Gavin. I can just about tolerate Peppa and her friends for small periods of time, i.e. 5 minute intervals on the television. A whole hour though was slightly torturous. That coupled with the fact that it cost me £3.60 for a tub of sweets! And yes you had to pay the £3.60 in advance regardless of how many sweets you actually wanted to purchase. Thus forcing us to fill the tub in order to feel like we were getting our moneys worth and not in reality being severely ripped off! And don't even get me started on how much it cost to purchase a small bag of popcorn...£4.00, it's corn!! Sugar coated inflated corn (deep calming breaths)! Needless to say we didn't bother with the popcorn. So the sweets ensured not only that my daughter was a sticky, slobbering mess before the show even started and me with no wet wipes again. Sometimes I feel so inadequate as a mother, especially when other mothers seem so well equipped - particularly the mother sat next to me that had to offer me the wet wipes to assist in our sticky situation but also that we literally had to scrape Emily off the ceiling by the end of the show because of the sugar high she was obviously experiencing. And yes I know we should really have thought through the snack situation before we arrived at the theatre, once again lends to my theory about my inadequacies as a mother (sigh).



So next I foolishly attempted something more adult enjoyable (well for female adults anyway) a small shopping spree in Primark. Silly, silly Anna! Emily spent the time either hiding in piles of clothes, pulling clothes off the rails or running at high speed towards the front door, knowing that I was unable to follow her due to the vast pile of clothes in my arms. Leaving me only one option, screaming like a banshee much to the dismay of other customers and staff a like. This combined with me walking into other shoppers not once but three times in my distraction, ensuring that I came very close to being punched in the face by a rather grumpy young mother whose pram I nearly derailed, opps! I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown when Gavin finally came to my rescue! Our next foolish decision...A trip to Frankie and Bennys for some tea. 

On arriving at Frankie and Bennys Emily made a little friend which was rather sweet and kept her happily distracted whilst Gavin and I perused the many millions of menus the waitress bestowed upon us. Seriously I think there was about 4 different menus with various meal deals! We all chose our food and Emily reassured me on three separate occasions that she did indeed want a burger but of course refused to eat anything once her food actually arrived. She just nibbled on a few chips and took a bite of the bap surrounding the burger, dipped her fingers in the ketchup, climbed on the back of the seat much to the dismay of the couple sat behind us, threw things on the floor, tried to escape on several occasions and moaned continually. I could literally feel my blood pressure rising and my dinner, completely spoiled of course - I ended up with that old familiar friend (indigestion) before I had even finished my food. However I guess it could have been worse, the little girl sat next to us was by this time having a full blown tantrum. I think between the two of them they ensured that all childless couples seated around us will remain childless for the foreseeable future. I wanted to tell the couples to move to a quieter part of the restaurant, to reassure them that we wouldn't be remotely offended. In fact if we could have moved too and left Emily where she was we would have done!


Wow, happy days! Ha ha ha...





  
  

1 comment:

  1. All I can say is thanks goodness someone else is now having the "delights" of having a beautiful but rumbustious small female child. Can't imagine who she reminds me of. Lots of lovely memories , bit like childbirth you would not change a thing!but you might want to.xxx

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