Metal Mummy

The last 2 or 3 days have been, let’s say, on the difficult side. Freyja has obviously realised what buttons she can push, for me to be reduced down into a blithering idiot, wanting to throw myself into the Solent. She’s getting to the “terrible two” stage – that stage that I naively though only began on her 2nd birthday, and stopped on the eve of her 3rd. I was wrong. At a few days short of 17 months, it’s started. She’s damn right evil at points. Yesterday involved being kicked in the face because she didn’t want her shoes on, having dirt thrown over me because I wouldn’t let her eat a dead snail, and stretching her nice new stripey Gap top, because she was trying to get her arm out of the neck-hole and got stuck, then stropped at getting stuck. This was then followed by the mother-of-all-strops because, god forbid, I tried to get her top back on…

So today, I thought, I’m not having that again, so decided to wear her out instead. By the time I was done, she wouldn’t have time to strop. My mission was to take her to Krazy Kaves, the local soft play zone, let her run around like a madchild for a couple of hours (with me running after her no doubt), followed by a visit from her little friend Gracie-May, which would involve some sort of oout-in-the-garden play, which would probably include dirt.

So, off to the Kaves we went. She had a whale of a time. She has a belief that, although a toddler, she would fare perfectly well in the big kids bit. I’m not one to argue. Mainly because I hadn’t had a cup of tea, and didn’t want her to cause a scene. So off she went into the big kids bit, with me in quick succession. It was rammed. The last week of the kids holidays obviously means everyone wants to go there before schools open again. Normally I avoid these places because of that, but I thought today may have been quiet. It wasn’t. We went everywhere in the big kids zone, down the slides, over the obstacles, up the cargo net, around the little maze, everywhere. Not one problem arose. Not one vile child ran into her. Nothing. If anything, it was rather pleasant. A girl, no more than 10, thought that Freyja was really cute, and proceeded to follow us round the play area for 20 minutes. Much nicer than the vile children that can be there.

We then went into the toddler area. You know, the area that you believe would be perfectly safe for your toddler. The area that you don’t expect vile cretins to inhabit. The area that little babies crawl around in, and Freyja should be one of the big kids.

She was playing in the ball pit. She loves the ball pit. She will spend ages trying to get from one side of the other, covering herself in balls so she looks like a little floating head. It was then, that a vile little Pompey scroat, bigger than a toddler, lunged himself into the ball pit and landed on Freyja’s face. He knew fully well she was there. I told him so, very nicely in my lovely sweet voice,

“Be careful when you go in, there’s a little baby in there who has hidden all but her face. Can you see her?” *Points finger at Freyja*
“Yes, I can see her”

Bastard.

Needless to say, she cried. So I flung myself into the pit and grabbed her out of the ball-y grave. I gave the cretin, who had a face only a mother could love, “the look”, glanced around to see if I could see his mother (who was nowhere to be seen) and left.

The good point? She’s not stropped today!