Toddler Turns Two!

So the toddler is now two – he had his big boy birthday last week. Will I convince my partner now is a good time to try for another.....? (No! He screams at me! Never again!)

The night before his birthday, after a week of late nights and early mornings my very tired fella, put the kids to bed with stories from Winnie the Witch. He yawned down stairs and began to put together the birthday present – a balance bike. Lamps off, big light on, tool box from the cellar, instruction booklet open and down to business.

Then as I filled the dishwasher, an abrupt outburst of profanities..........

The screws were not in the box – we’d had the bike for over a week but we hadn’t checked, we hadn’t made it up and now the toddler would be bikeless on his birthday.

My suggestion of ‘Check the box again!’ – a few times was greeted with the irritation  you’d expect, as was my, ‘Have you checked the envelope?’ idea.

Through tired eyes he emailed a rather choice note to Amazon, including an emotive image of the two year olds disappointment for the morning.

And send.

Then of course he found the screws, already in the right holes........

Sheepishly he told me the mistake was made because of the wording / diagram in the instruction booklet.

‘You better email Amazon’ I said but it just hung there in the air.

The bike was made and seemed giant sized compared to the little legs of my baby.

The next day in brilliant sunshine, the toddler scowled at the bike, tried to get his legs on the bike, wobbled a bit, fell and gave up for now, he looked longingly at the bike, from a distance but when he got close he frowned and ran off, all ideas of fast movement foiled!–  (all was saved the weekend after when his big friend gave him a little scooter he’d grown out of ).

A lovely little picnic party after work and school, all the family eating veggie jelly and balloon cake in the speckled Autumn light.

Then an email check and those efficient people at Amazon had already sent out a new bike and their sincere apologies.

Doh! Another day waiting in for the delivery and then another trip to the blasted post office to return it, after a shamefaced email explaining the mistake. Everything taking ten times as long as it should!

Blame it on the tiredness.

Blame it on the kids.

Blame it on......... general incompetence!!!