Pushing a double buggy in all this heat is not my idea of fun
My sister Michelle has two children, Sienna, five and Florence who turns three this weekend. So we often play tag team in babysitting duties when needed. This week it was my turn to look after hers’ so she and husband Shaun could go to Bristol to see Elton John in concert (so jealous).
But because we live in a twobedroomed bungalow we had to stay at their house in order to have them overnight.
We’ve had them before at ours and it was horrendous because there just isn’t room for five people. My sister lives in a three-storey, three-bedroomed house in Horndean so it made more sense for us to go there.
The weather has been beautiful this week and I will never moan about being too hot, but looking after three under-fives in someone else’s house with temperatures reaching the high 20s was difficult.
It was not made easier by the fact I had to do the ‘school run’ pushing two toddlers in a double buggy that quite honestly was not designed with pavements in mind (it was so blooming wide that one wheel kept slipping off the pavement).
Between the two of them they probably weigh nearly five stones so navigating the streets in blistering heat was challenging.
As soon as I got them home they stripped off and played in the garden until it was time for bed at which point none of them wanted to doze off.
This ended with me taking Harley out of their bedroom and putting her in with me because, while it was lovely for me to watch them all enjoy each other’s company, there are only so many times I can trek up and down stairs to put three children back in their beds (makes me grateful for living on one floor).
By 9pm (oops) there was finally peace until 6am the following day when the dreaded morning routine followed by the school run came around. I opened the front door after plastering them all in sun cream only to realise it had started raining.
My face clearly said it all when I spotted a friend at the school gates who burst out laughing when she saw me with three kids looking like a wreck… ‘same time next week’, she said? Erm… no!