Tales of a Missing Mammal & 'Muddled' Mums
Much of our Sunday morning was spent in search of a small, plastic rhino that our daughter is the primary carer for. Tot likes to include everybody in everything she's doing, and this includes when playing with her set of little animals: All Animals Must Be Present.
However, this morning rhino went missing. For the best part of an hour we experienced the same sentence: "Where's rhino gone? Where's rhino gone?"
This resulted in my husband and I turning up half the house looking for it. To no avail, I was even looking under an inflatable blue seat in the garden by 8am (as you do,) when a real life frog leapt out! In the heat of the moment, my instant thought was that I'd plunged into a jumpy version of Toy Story- the frog was coincidentally a similar size and colour to 'rhino!' (I'm clearly no Attenborough, here.)
Anyway, we still have no idea where "rhino's gone" (as Tot continues to inform us at regular intervals.) But thanks to old Mr Froggy, we did have a ten minute distraction period from the lost toy.
Talking of losing things, I certainly didn't 'lose' Tot the other day, but she did a blumin' good kind of vanishing act. I needed to briefly run into our local Next store so I popped Little Babe and her car seat straight onto the pushchair, and decided Tot could hold my hand to walk round. Well, whilst in store I stopped to look at the ever-luring sale rail, when Tot started reaching for something in the basket under the pushchair.
Somehow, the next thing I know, Tot had slid her way into the basket and was laughing, as her head had popped out the other side! I was half-amused, half-embarrassed, as a flock of fellow bargain hunters were looking at us, some chuckling.
Problem was, Tot's giggling swiftly turned into toddler tears as she was trying to get out the front side of the basket. Unfortunately, the gap was too small for the rest of her body. "Stttuuuccckkk!" she wailed! Oh life.
Meanwhile, Little Babe was staring vacantly at me, probably wondering what a strange sensory experience this was, being able to hear her sister's voice from UNDER her car seat!?
"STUCK!" Tot kept crying.
By this point, I was knelt down on the floor, trying to encourage Tot that she needed to go backwards! "Come back out this way! Back the way you got in!" I kept saying. Tot didn't have a clue, bless her: she kept on trying to go forward, flapping about like some sort of downward diving duck! What a scene. She really wasn't all that stuck.
I had two options.
Option 1: Take the car seat, with Little Babe, off of the pushchair and 'free' our toddler.
Option 2: Look like a totally muddled mother and man-handle our child, grasping her by the hips and sliding her back out towards me, feet first!
Rather mortifyingly, I chose the latter.
In a fluster, I then frantically grabbed some blousey thing off of the rail, to 'style out' the whole situation. It was not ideal.
Also, I am adamant that as Tot and I emerged from the floor, Little Babe gave us the most disapproving of looks. (She is usually such a smiler, so it must've been bad!)
Finally, Little Babe is now joining in with her own little funny tricks. At one point this week, my Mum, the girls and me had popped to a garden centre, and on our way out I had hold of Little Babe and my Mum was walking Tot. As we were going along, my Mum and I suddenly felt 'attached' to each other- we couldn't walk apart. It was like we'd had a minor transformation into conjoined twins- maybe it was a Freaky Friday!? Anyhow, we soon realised we were attached by the Power of Baby Grip. It was incredibly strong! Little Babe had used her new gripping skill to sneakily slide her ninja fingers around my mum's handbag strap, causing two grown women to be unable to physically separate! It's the stuff of miracles, it really is!
And on that note, I must leave it there for today- We've still got a rhino to find....
