Sunday, May 26, 2013

Singing - swearing, more like - in the rain...


This is not Hugo - it's more than my life is worth putting a photo of him online!!!! - but a pic I found of an anonymous child in a Bugaboo.  The Duchess of Cambridge may well have bought one, and it was my gift when Emma was born, but I've never seen a more ridiculous contraption in my life!!!!  These modern-day strollers are as big as tanks and almost impossible to manoeuvre.  
I had to mind both children on Thursday and it POURED rain.  As you can't leave a 2-yr-old at home alone, or even in the car while you dash into the school amid rainboots, raincoats and umbrellas with the older one, it's a case of taking both.  (This has to be timed between potty sessions or there'll be wet on the inside as well as the outside.)  Of course, it's impossible to get a park within about a kilometre of any school on a bright, sunny day, let alone during a downpour, so it means quite a lengthy dash, slipping and sliding in the mud as you go.

At 10:45am there was a BIG morning tea to raise money for the Cancer Council, so I somehow got Hugo into the Bugaboo at 10:35, buckled him into the seatbelt, pulled the raincover over and set out on the 10-minute walk to the school.  I very soon discovered that steering the wretched, heavy buggy with one hand while attempting to hold my red umbrella with the other is simply not possible.  It took us so long to get there that Emma had given up hope of meeting us at the morning tea in the hall and had long since gone back to her classroom in tears of disappointment. (But they did raise $1,100 which was great.)

The into-the-carseat-and-buckle-up performance had to be repeated at 3 o'clock, when there was the heaviest downpour I've ever seen.  We waited under shelter outside the classroom for it to ease off, while Emma played with her tiny new $3 ball (which I'd bought for her to raise money for Stewart House, another charity).  One of her friends deliberately chucked it into the bushes, bringing yet more tears from Emma.  The teacher very crossly ordered the naughty child's father to retrieve it, which he did, quite stunned at being treated this way. Then we trudged, slipped and dripped our way back to the car, a kilometre away, for the two-minute drive home.

1 comment:

Winfix said...

I have never heard of a Bugaboo but it might explain a young mother
holding up the bus whilst it took her more than 5 minutes to get on
board with her massive buggy whilst trying to persuade another mother to
manoeuvre her own smaller one. Both babies remained fast asleep all the while.
I took on the 'angry old lady look'
as it made me late for a tour. I am sure I could have fitted both Jonathan and Philip into the one buggy many years ago (as you did then!)