A Flight of Fantasy

Back where we used to live I have a good friend, S, who completely gets my often obscure humour, when I say 'gets' I mean she's amused by my peculiarities and encourages them. I suppose someone has to.

Just before we moved and whilst we were waiting for a decision to made on where we were going to live my imagination took flight, as it is want to do and I conjured up three children for L and I. Of course, why would you not?! So we have Orson who is 5, Oberon or Obie for short who is 3 and Ophelia who is 1. I beginning to question my own sanity just hearing myself admit to this kind of thing...but in for a penny, in for a pound.

When S and I would meet for coffee I used to regale her with the fictional stories about my escapades with our 3 darling children, who are all quite a character (quite literally!) and it just became something that we did.

For no better reason than because I have a whim to do so, here is my latest chapter...

If the shoe fits....

During half term I mistakenly thought taking my 3 devil spawn children - sorry little darlings - shoe shopping was a good idea. Yup, you'd have thought I was a first time mum with an only child plus a friend's for a few hours to make that school girl error... How did I end up with all 3 in Shrewsbury town centre during half term? Daddy needed, yes NEEDED to go to a 2 hour jujitsu session so he therefore wasn't available to come with us. How convenient! If we're talking about need here I NEEDED a whole bottle of mulled wine, a massage and a therapist after my few hours with them but daddy NEEDED that two hour reprieve, sorry work out session!

It took me half an hour just to get them loaded into the car with snacks and pacifying implements: Ophelia's nose was running and Obie was whining he wanted the cola flavoured raisins, Orson didn't want to sit in the middle it made him car sick especially having to look at his sister's snotty nose etc etc. You'd have thought I'd have heeded that premonitory warning of how things were going to go and just stayed home, but apparently not.

Twenty minutes of taking the whistle stop tour of Shrewsbury to find a parking space, where some thoughtful person hadn't both got their driving licence off the back of a Kellog's cereal box and just aimed their car at a space and parked liked a twat, I found a spot. Cue fifteen minutes of wrestling snotty and now cranky Ophelia (she's not fond of the car or the pram) into her pram, whilst persuading Obie he's a big boy and needs to walk because today isn't mummy's resistance weight training day and I can't push both of them around town in a pram. We haven't even made it into town yet and my tolerance is swiftly vanishing.

Off to Clark's we go!

After what follows next I've no idea how social services weren't called...we enter Clark's and it's rammed with stressed out mothers, wailing or Olympic sprinting children, paled faced Prozac induced smiling shop assistants and bored disinterested dads. Again another warning I decided not to heed.

Orson's up first. His feet are measured and that part all goes smoothly, like his parents he has ridiculously small feet, if only that meant shoes were cheaper! Small chance. We then have half an hour of trying to find a pair of shoes to suit his majesty's refined and particular taste. Bored with arguing with my unnaturally eloquent and wordy five year old I (through gritted teeth) have him repeat his shoe size to me at least 3 times, tell him to try on whatever ones he wants in his size. In an attempt to learn from my mistakes I have Obie and Ophelia's feet measured at the same time, I already have a headache like an earthquake and it's nearing lunch time and since my swarm of locus ate all their snacks in the car I know I can expect full blown "mummy I'm so hungry my tummy hurts" at any moment.

In my preoccupation with knowing lunch time is coming I completely forget to warn the shoe fitting assistant Obie's extremely ticklish on his feet (like his mother). If this had happened to anyone else the comic timing would have had me in fits of hysterics on the hideous carpet, but it didn't. No sooner has Obie's ticklishness occurred to me and I am about to warn the incredibly patient shoe fitting assistant then smash! He kicked her in the mouth and she went cross-eyed with the impact. I've no idea where he gets his footballeresque punting from, daddy has fifty pence feet meaning the ball could literally go in any direction regardless of where it's aimed and I only regularly kick myself. Some mother's around me wince, either from what they know is going to be a smarting soon to be fat lip or from my glowing embarrassment. I start apologising profusely and scolding Obie at the same time, which then results in a torrent of tears and sniffing to contend with, why I didn't just leave and go home there and then I've no idea.

We finally manage to narrow down shoes for Orson, which he hands to me and promptly wonders off. I know, I know I should keep an eye on my children but I still had to find something for the other two! Eventually I manage to settle on a pair for Obie and a little pair of pumps for Ophelia after over an hour in the shop and I am just about to congratulate myself when I realise Orson is missing! I must have bellowed his name at least a dozen times before a frayed shop assistant kindly points out my oldest son is at the other end of the shop in the ladies department trying on shoes. Dragging a still sniffing Obie, pushing Ophelia and trying to carry three boxes of shoes (do shoes really need to come in boxes?!) I find him surrounded by dozens of shoes all over the floor in an horrific mess that is akin to a hand grenade having gone off in the room. Worse, he is parading up and down a small walk way in a pair of fuchsia pink heels instructing his rapt audience of other children just how you walk in them!

I took that to be my cue for a sharp exit, grabbed my offspring, hastily paid whilst not trying to think of remortgaging a house we don't own to pay for the 3 pairs of tiny shoes and headed for the door. We're barely fives minutes down the road before Ophelia starts crying in earnest, the kind of crying that makes every shopper turn in your direction like you're the worst person in the world. No matter how much I used my calm soothing voice to make her stop, or how often I had to tell Orson holding his hands over his ears and demanding to know why his little sister had to be loud wasn't helping, I could not get my children to be seen and not heard. Finally I went to a bench sat down turned the pram toward me as Obie pipes up with "mummy my tummy hurts, is it lunch time and I want McDonalds" to see Ophelia only has one shoe on.

Back we go looking for Cinderella's slipper....can't find it anywhere along the road. I have no option but to go back into Clark's and show my face. Oh the shame. Head bent and shoulders slumped we do just that. Cue fifteen minutes of explaining to either immensely dumb or concussed shoe fitting assistant that I've lost my daughter's shoe before she enlists the help of others just to get us out of the shop quicker I'm sure. Ten minutes later it's found having been put back on a wrack and she helpfully rams it in Ophelia's foot and guides us toward the doors. As we're leaving I deliberately avoid eye contact with the staff who are still putting the shoes back in order in the ladies department.

I must have broke more than one speed limit getting my little darlings home for a healthy lunch of beans on toast for them and a stiff drink for me. I would say never again but inevitable this traumatic experience will be wiped clean from my memory the moment I go to sleep and won't be remembered until Christmas time when I think it's a good idea to take all 2 Christmas shopping for daddy's present!

Day 15 Something or Someone You Couldn’t Live Without, Because You’ve Tried Living Without it.

My answer to this one is 4 fold. I can't live without the following Imagination, Literature, Disney - it had to get in there somewhere - and hope.

Here's why...

Without imagination life in bleak and dull and empty. If you possess imagination you possess the magic ticket to anywhere and to everything.

Imagination gives life to literature and to Disney, without it neither one of these things would or could exist. Imagination is the mother and father of all creativity.

When life throws you some...snow globe moments - think about what you do to a snow globe - and you're devoid and empty with no imagination, no magic ticket, no ability to lose yourself in literature or Disney what are you left with...hope.

From hope and with hope you can find your way back to just about anything.