Tinytoes and Microtoes slept really well last night, whereas I lay wide awake for much of it. When DaddyO travels I feel the need to be more alert and awake. Which is silly really because I’m usually the lighter sleeper anyway; my ears tuned in to detect the smallest wail or whimper.
I kept expecting Microtoes to wake for a feed, but the past two nights she has slept through – from 7pm to 6.30am. This is unchartered territory for me. I’m used to feeding her at 11pm and then again at 3.30am. I started weaning her on Sunday but would be surprised if the miniscule amount of baby rice I manage to cram into her mouth mid-breastfeed on two lunchtimes could have had such a dramatic impact on her sleep.
Tinytoes also slept right through in her new, adult-sized single bed which arrived last week. The girls were undoubtedly tired out from the excitement of being stranded in a car yesterday…
It had all been going so well. Tinytoes was so pleased to see me when I came to collect her at nursery that she shouted ‘mummy!’ in delight and then put her coat and shoes on without any fuss, before reaching out for my hand and carefully walking down the stairs with me to the car. She then climbed into her car seat and patiently waited for me to strap her in while I strapped Microtoes into her car seat.
In my dazed state you would be forgiven for thinking that maybe I had picked up the wrong child, but no, it was definitely Tinyotes. The new, revolutionised nursey pick-up routine, which has immeasurably improved the quality of my daily life, is solely down to Tinytoes moving up a level last week. She is now slightly out of her depth, playing alongside 2-4 year olds rather than 0-1 year olds.
She’s gradually settling in, but still overjoyed to see me and come back home. No longer do I have to chase her around the nursery while carrying Microtoes, just to put her coat on. Or to patiently reason, cajole and then coerce her to come down the stairs. The whole process of simply exiting the nursery would sometimes take 45 minutes, but today it only took 8 minutes.
I was quietly congratulating myself on such a speedy turnaround as I pulled the car out onto the main road. Frowned as it felt slightly strange to drive – I was in third gear but the car wasn’t accelerating properly, it was just rattling – then felt dismay wash over me as I realised something was seriously wrong with the car.
Back by the side of the road I quickly realised my front, offside tyre was completely flat. DaddyO was at the airport about the board a plane to Italy and suggested I tried to put the spare tyre on the car myself using the kit in the boot (!) Was this some kind of joke? Yes I’d fitted a spare tyre on our hire car in Cuba in 2007, but we got rather a lot of practise at that because we got through three tyres on that trip, and that was 10 years ago; and it was a balmy 30 degrees rather than four degrees like today. Oh and I didn’t have two babies sitting in the back of the car.
Two babies looking up at me in surprised, yet unperturbed expectation, somehow taking it for granted that Mummy would know what to do. I called Granny who was at a reunion 2 hours away. With only 30% battery left on my phone I called the RAC; thank goodness we renewed our membership. By the time the woman on the other end of the phone had identified our whereabouts I only had 5% battery. “Someone will be with you at around 3pm,” she concluded. “That’s nearly 2 hours away! I have 2 infants in the back and it’s freezing cold,” I spluttered, at which point Tinytoes started a low wail of despair and I knew it wouldn’t be long until Microtoes joined in.
Luckily, things couldn’t have worked out better for us (except if I’d hadn’t broken down in the first place of course). I texted Granny to see if she had any local friends who could help, then made a last-ditched plea on social media. Granny texted back to say she had found an old lady V from her bridge club who would be coming to pick us up in a silver Honda. My phone promptly died.
As we sat and waited for the Honda to arrive, Tinytoes had a whale of a time romping around inside the car and Microtoes fell fast asleep. Barely 10 minutes later we were all crammed into the back of the Honda; Tinytoes on my lap (I later discovered this was not illegal for short, emergency journeys, so I was not incriminating V) and Microtoes beside us in her detachable car seat. V turned out to be a lovely old lady, well into her late 80s, and I felt uncomfortable for dragging her out of her warm flat to chauffer her bridge friend’s daughter and grandchildren back home.
Not long after we got back – both girls were settled to sleep and I was preparing my lunch – than the phone rang and the guy from the RAC was already with the car, telling me there was a ‘pinhole’ in the side of the wheel. “Hmm did someone do that deliberately?” I mused indignantly. “Either that or the wheel was scraped along the edge of the kerb,” he replied. I had a sudden flashback of nearly arriving late at nursery because Microtoes had needed a nappy change just as I was leaving the house. I drove there quickly and to ease parking I carelessly let the wheel ride up onto the kerb and drop back down onto the road. “Oops, that would have been me then…”
The man from the RAC went above and beyond the call of duty; driving all the way to my home to pick up my keys. He then drove back to the abandoned car, retrieved the spare tyre from the boot and fitted it, before driving back to return my keys to me. After I’d thanked him profusely, it transpired it had been a nightmare for him because it had been school home time and I’d left the car outside a school. The whole road was blocked with a long queue of buses, struggling to get past my car, which I’d left slightly sticking out in my haste to turn off the engine.
Later than evening, Granny drove me and the girls back up to reclaim the car and then we drove back home in separate cars. I was sheepish I put so many people out – the old lady, the RAC man, my mother – all because I’d parked carelessly. I, on the other hand, got off rather lightly, all things considered. And the girls were none the wiser; just another day full of curious events.
Calamitous Mummy 