It started off as any other day, a nice relaxing breakfast with things getting more rushed as our departure time drew nearer. Apparently it’s normal for kids, particularly boys to hate getting dressed in the morning and my son likes to take this to the extreme. I’ve learned he will cooperate if he is able to karate chop his way into his clothes, but I don’t always have the time to play Sensei and really just want him in anything but pyjamas. So it’s either a full-blown tantrum (thrown by me) or karate kid so we usually go for the latter...

I dropped the two darlings off at Occasional care and headed to the ‘Food for Families’ workshops where I enjoyed a lovely few hours talking about my passion with some lovely ladies keen to learn more about nutrition & health. I ventured home to spend the last hour of free time at the computer, and then picked the kids up at 2:00pm.

I bundled them in the car, craft in hand & called into the local shopping centre to the ATM & P.O. Box, everything was fine! Drove out of the drive-way heading towards the traffic lights to turn right onto a major road and my car stalled - and would not start. Yep, the kind of thing that happens to other people and you drive by with a faint feeling of guilt because you’re relieved it’s them and not you, especially with two young kids in the car.

I immediately called the RACV who informed me that they’d send a tow truck because my car could not be worked on while it was in such a dangerous spot (in the middle of an intersection). Out of all of the people who drove past us (at least a hundred) that could see  my hazard lights were on and the bonnet was in the air, TWO were kind enough to ask if we needed any assistance. But many were silly enough to pull up behind me expecting me to take off when the light turned green!!

Thirty minutes later my car had been safely carried into the nearby car park and we we’re waiting for a taxi to arrive a take us home. The kids usually have a late lunch/early afternoon snack and then sleep/rest after occasional care so they were tired and hungry so we went over to the shopping centre to get something to eat. I saw Parker doing his ‘I need to go to the toilet’ dance but “I don’t need to” is always his response, so I told him “I need to go, so let’s go to the toilet” which was very closely followed by Tantrum number 1.

While I was attending to that, the tow truck driver kindly put our two car seats into the taxi and departed to make his delivery at our place. I put Lana into her seat and took Parker around to the other side of the taxi to put him into his – Tantrum No. 2.

Throughout the whole saga Parker was acting quite unusual, we’ve recently introduced the concept of a stranger to him so he was quite wary of the tow truck and taxi drivers and wanted our car off the truck so we could drive it home, then he was adamant about not wanting to get into the taxi because he wanted to go home in our car and was very disturbed by these two strange men. 

We made it home safely, a whole 5km away, arriving at the same time as the car was being deposited onto the nature strip and now had to call the RACV to come and see what was wrong.  

Everything was back to normal, Jay arrived home & we debriefed, all had a play in the toy room together, cooked dinner and started the bath time & bed routine. Again, just like any other day. Changing Lana’s nappy I hear a crashing thud coming from the bathroom. Parker had slipped in the bath and now has an impressive split from the corner of his eye. I feel the need to mention he was totally supervised, just one of those unfortunate freak accidents that made us both sick to our stomachs.

It can be difficult, and it’s usually in hindsight, but I try to think of a positive in every situation. Today we were so lucky I’d already picked up the kids when the car decided to call it quits, it would have made an unwanted situation even worse if they had to stay at occasional care past closing time. I’m also glad it happed at 2:10 rather than 3:10pm when the roads would have been full of school traffic and we would have been a major inconvenience. Tonight Parker was extremely lucky he didn’t do any damage to his eye & Jay's crisis management skills shone through, he's much better than me at keeping Parker calm and knowing exactly what to say and do in these situations. The poor kid has a nice shiner and will possibly have a descent scar to remind him how brave he was.

So I’m finishing this off on Tuesday morning after 4 hours sleep last night, Lana is getting her four incisors all at once and has had a run of rough nights lately. Honestly, I don’t know how to put a positive spin on 4 hours sleep so I’m not even going to try!

Today's a new day, let's see what it has to offer!