My list of parenting fails began within hours of giving birth when the hospital midwife announced, a little louder than strictly necessary, I felt, that I’d put Freya’s nappy on back to front.
Even then I remember thinking: “It’s only going to get worse.” And I was right. This week, though, I might have met the level cap for parental daftness.
Get ready to roll your eyes.
We have a clock in our living room, a digital radio clock (fancy!), which is positioned by the television so that it can be seen from every point in the room.
Unless you happen to be short-sighted.
Like me.
The only way I can see that clock is to a) have my glasses on all the time, which never happens (often because I’ve put them down somewhere and then can’t see to find them), or b) stand with my nose virtually pressed up against the glowing green numbers.
For the last few years it’s been fine. We’ve (luckily, as it turned out) never really had to rush anywhere first thing. No clock watching needed.
And then Freya started nursery.
For some reason (Mark), everything always has to happen in the 45 minutes before we need to go. There’s not a spare second to keep going backwards and forwards to the clock (usually because I’m panicking about where my glasses are).
Not to worry because I came up with a solution. I noticed that Hey Duggee started on CBeebies (for my overseas readers, this is a children’s television channel which runs from 6am-7pm with no annoying adverts for tiny plastic things no one needs) at exactly the time we needed to get ready to leave. Every day.
Bingo.
Since September, for SEVEN MONTHS, we’ve been in a nice routine, springing into action as Alexander Armstrong says, jovially, “Isn’t it time for….”
“Nursery!” I shout.
Can you guess what happened this week?
That’s right.
“MUM!” Freya, still in her PJs, barged into the bathroom as I was mid-shower in a mini panic. “We are LATE. Hey Duggee is on. Quuiiiiick.”
What the?
“No, it can’t be,” I said, frantically washing shampoo out of my hair. I’m sure when I last looked, what seemed like minutes ago, it was 7.35am. Had I fallen asleep in the shower? I’m sure that has happened in the past.
I had the quickest wash ever (and they are never that long) and practically slid into the living room like I was doing a cool dance floor move (when really my feet were still wet) to find that…it was actually 7.43am.
Hey Duggee was indeed on.
Because they changed the schedule.
The rotters.
And the thing is, I get the impression they totally know the chaos this caused.
