Last updated on January 14, 2020
Tonight was an adventure. The kids didn’t want to come to the un-bible study: our little home group of Lateral thinkers where we sometimes talk about topics vaguely related to the Bible.
I had spent the day wandering around the city with my fellow class mates, looking at street art. By the time I was at home, I was utterly stonkered… Eventually, I fell asleep in the chair whilst supervising yet another YouTube mine craft thing with the guy with the long head who laughs like he’s slightly criminally insane… I’m sure he’s lovely. The kids think the sun shines from his big blocky head. I prefer the other one with the cool hair.
I digress. I tend to do that, when sleep deprived.
I came-to with hubby standing over me – realising it’s time to go. But I got zero traction. One flat out tantrum, one utter refusal to move and one tired and possibly sick toddler having a post-nap meltdown.
Ugh. This is supposed to be faith stuff. It isn’t supposed to be this hard, right? I’m not trying to convert Africa or overthrow the corrupt power structure of the Guatemalan political system…
I just want to go to unbible group.
It was only fifteen minutes, when I reflect back, but it felt like the whole night. Three screaming children, one red-faced angry mummy… In the end, I strapped the crying toddler into the car and threatened the next one with one of his shoes to get him into the car – the eldest one had gotten into the car straight away, desperate I think, to avoid more conflict in the wake of his initial tantrum… and we finally set off.
The meeting was fun – we talked about art and how we don’t always understand the language, and whether that means it is or isn’t art… We played with a new puppy, we ate spaghetti and meat balls…
And finally, time to leave. The kids had just hit the ratty point of the evening, tat bit when you look into their eyes and they’re not quite focussed…
Jumped in the car…
Bogged.
Wheel-spinniest, mud-churniest bogged.
We tried rolling back a bit. Now we are bogged further into the front yard. We tried turning the wheel and heading in another direction… Now my left wheel is sunk so far it is a mud wrestle. We shove boards under it. Nope.
Inside the car: two year old, who had been all geared up to go home, is pointing at the road, shouting “go that way” and when we can’t, he gets confused, and when the car starts to rock as we try to shift it, he freaks out and starts wailing and shaking.
Then we get the neighbour to come. He has a big four wheel drive. That’ll work.
Inside the car: I’ve put Weird Al’s White and Nerdy on. The kids love it, and it’s the only think I can think of. So I’m doing the stupid white mummy dance to the stupid white parody rap thing to try to distract the smalls when the guy turns up… And he looks like he listens to rap fo’ realz, yo. And I’m some white nutter shaking my dreads around, trapped in a bogged people mover. Yay. Two year old sees stranger and loses the last shreds of his tiny mind. He is shaking and sobbing. So I unbuckle him, pull him into the front seat and hope the proximity is a winner. He starts playing with dials, so weird al is now at maximum.
Sticking my head out the window, I yell (over Al) “this is going to work, right?”
“Pretty sure, why?”
“Well, this is the part in the cartoons when the towing vehicle drives away with the front drive shaft and/or the engine and leaves me sitting on car seats as the doors fall down around me… But that’s just cartoons, right?”
“Ha ha, yeah”
Un.con.vinc.ing.
The doors are vibrating and the windows shaking as we are towed to freedom, rapping happily (or involuntarily) to yet another play through of the “nerty” song.
My engine stays in the car.
I strap toddler back into his car seat and drive five minutes home.
My toddler throws himself around my husband’s legs and clings to him like he’ll never let him go.
Sigh.
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