no power for pancake party

The plan was to take the kids swimming and then drive the 3 miles to Peter's Pancake party.

The swimming bit, really did go swimmingly. Pleaaaase is getting so much better at going under water and Mischief just can't get enough of splashing about in the water!

After swimming I noticed this little red warning light on the dash, but thought, it'll be alright, not far to go.

However I made one huge error! Several more warning lights came on at the traffic lights. I was in the middle lane during rush hour.

For one second I thought it would make sense to turn the ignition on and off and see if all those horrid lights would go away. Unfortunately I did this before I thought about possible consequences and of course...the car wouldn't start again.

So here I was stuck at the lights with two under fives in the car and no mobile phone. I glanced around and saw that I was right next to the pub, so danced across the lanes to the pub leaving the kids locked in our little metal island.

I asked pitifully to borrow a phone to call the AA. They were fantastic in there. They lent me a phone, helped push the car 50 metres to the car park and let me bring my restless and hungry kids into the pub (so I bought them all a drink while we waited).

The AA man took us all to the garage which was shut, so we abandoned it there and he took us home.

We were sad to have missed the party, because Peter's pancake parties are almost legendary and the kids are at just the right age to start enjoying it.

Once home we had a mini pancake party with lemon and sugar pancakes. then I zipped them off to bed (at least 2 hours after bedtime).

This morning I got up early, found bike lights, pumped up tyres, found high-vis vest, bike locks, gloves and cycle helmet and cycled 7miles to work. I was surprised how easy the cycle was and how only my toes got cold!

The car is going to cost at least £500 and may not be ready today, so I may be cycling for a few more days!

Roots and Wings

I thought I ought to introduce the blog.

I love the quote about the importance about giving your kids roots and wings.

This blog will probably have little relevance to that, but may feature my kids!

night time disruption by proxy

My kids are 1 and 3. 'Mischief'(a boy) and 'Pleeease'(a girl) respectively.

At night they are pretty good at sleeping, apart from the odd nightmare or weeing event.

Mischief has discovered a rather cunning way of waking me up without him having to lose any sleep!

While I am distracted with Mum type activities like shovelling toys, stacking-up washing and hosing down the kitchen. Mischief snuck into my room and set my radio alarm.

At Midnight there was an huge racket which I leapt up in an OMG-its-the-end-of-the-world panic and crushed instantly, but it was followed by a back up alarm-riot every hour thereafter.

I have no idea how he did this, but it was extremely annoying and resulted in the alarm being chucked in the wardrobe and buried under a pile of clothes.

This makes waking up for work a bit hit and miss, but more importantly makes me more aware of the power of Mischief whose favourite hobby is pressing buttons.

He finds it all the more satisfying if they make a rounded and reassuring beep to acknowledge his finger bouncing efforts.

We already hide remotes and cameras; cover on off switches on TV's, computers etc. But my Mischief proofing may have to go further!

His other favourite button pressing activity is fixing the timer on the cooker so I can't turn it on. I have learnt to solve this with a quick double button press so you needn't worry about us having no hot meals in this snowbound and wintry weather.

Even the doorbell doesn't get off lightly.

I wonder if this quick draw button beeping can be harnessed (in a 1year old) into a useful activity?