What a day.

20months 17days

When a day begins at 4.30am, maybe it should be cancelled immediately, to save the almost inevitable chaos, heartache and stress! That's not doing the day justice, there have been some nice bits, and Katie always always brings me happies. BBut there has been some BLEURGH too!

It started at 4.30. So by the time we set off for soft play, Katie was shattered and went to sleep, skipping most of it, yet not staying asleep long enough to be fully rejuvenated for gymnastics. She loved the buckets and ducks, although refused to give them back at the end of the activity and didnt much want to do quite a few of the activities - she just wanted to climb the apparatus over and over. Whilst clutching a bucket full of ducks.

We had arranged a nice picnic with granny and grandad in a park not too far away. We all met up, sat nicely enjoying our sandwiches and of course the heavens opened. We adjourned to the car and it was still very pleasant. Thankfully it brightened up and Katie got to have a lovely 45 minutes chasing round the park. Literally. Chase was what she wanted to do. She went in the swings (as did Grandad) but running was what she had in mind.

We had some jobs to do after we'd said goodbye to them, so off we went. That went reasonably smoothly, really. Until we set off home. We sat in a lot of traffic, not moving very far or very fast. Katie wasnt amused. And decded it was about time for her tea. We were 10 miles away from home when I felt us drive over something. I then felt the tyre very rapidly deflate and the wheel scrape along the road. As I got out to look at it, the heavens opened again and Katie began to cry.

Thankfully, the field of horses distracted her until the Cousins arrived to take her to play. My friend arrived to then help sort things out. But that of course couldnt be simple. The wheel had practically whelded itself to the car. It required a lump hammer. WHich we didnt have. An hour later, we did. The spare was then rather a comedy sketch of its own (i use that word loosely, maybe i'll laugh tomorrow!) A ridiculous farsical comedy of confused arrangements then followed, whereby I was at my house with linda's car, my car's location was unknown, and of course to add to it all, my phone died!!

But eventually I arrived at the Cousins to discover that Katie had not only been exceptionally good and had lots of fun, she'd had a bath, and tucked herself into Cousin 2's bed and gone to sleep.

Oh and to top the day off, I then burnt my pizza!

Today I am grateful. For friends. For family. And for my little girl who brightens every day.