Why Do I Bother….going to the park

After a morning of Lil Princess crying most of the morning and Lil Man whining and moaning, I’d had enough.

‘We’re going out!’

Leaving the House

I declared, hoping to literally just walk out the door. Of course, this never happens with two young children. One has just done a poo, the other needs to put some trousers and shoes on. Its fine, we will go out within the next 10 minutes – I tell myself.

20 minutes later, we are not much closer to leaving the house. Lil Man is feeling particularly uncooperative with everything from putting on his shoes to brushing his teeth. And now I need to make up a bottle to take with us.

Eventually, we get out. I decided to take them to a park a bit further afield as its one with a duck pond. I thought it would be nice for Lil Man to ride his trike while I carried Baby in the Baby Bjorn. And it was. At first.

The day started off so well

After a little stroll and a few goes on the slide and swings, Baby starts crying for her bottle. So we find a shady area under the trees to feed whilst Lil Man runs around in the fields. To begin with, he is playing behind me, so immediately I ask him to move into my line of vision.

Feeding Time

He did as he was told but then ran as far away from me as possible. To be fair, it was still within my gaze. But now, he is completely the other side of the field. I tell myself to relax, he can’t go anywhere and its all other mums here. Despite this, I have to call him back, only this time he doesn’t come back.

He runs further…. And further. And behind a bush (out of sight). Now I panic!

I’ve got Baby feeding from her bottle, on my lap whilst sat on the grass. I gather up everything and with Baby in one arm, pushing the trike with the other and Baby Bjorn dragging on the floor behind me and run. (Well march).

Running After the Little Scamp

Stomping across the field, shouting in my best teacher voice I follow the little scamp across the field whilst he runs further away. Baby is spewing up milk on me from all the marching and I am sweating my tits off.

When I eventually catch up with him, I am so furious that I grab him by the arm and literally drag him back across the field. I could feel those other mums eyes burning on me as I did it. And to be honest, I would have scowled too.

I immediately felt guilty and we all sat on the floor and cried. Talk about dramatic. Last night, in bed, I tortured myself over losing it. I played it over and over in my mind and even imagined what Super Nanny would have said. Sorry Jo, I know it was the worst reaction possible.

So in answer to my own question – why do I bother? Sometimes, I really don’t know why, but really days like these don’t occur too often and we did have some fun before the storm hit.