No one from Social Services has visited me, or called, nor have I had a letter. I am assuming that I will be left alone, provided that no more incidents happen, or more correctly, that no more incidents get noticed. Which brings me to Monday morning. The Monday Morning Of Awfulness And Resulting Sweaty Armpits.

As you may recall, our filthy buggy got stolen a few months ago, and so now we drag the enormous, new buggy  ( although slightly mouldering in places) down the stairs at night, and up again in the morning. It is just another extra difficult job to do when you are trying to get five people dressed and fed and lunches packed and breastfeeding done and ties found and jackets on and then have to walk fast for 25 minutes to Edgware Road, getting stung in the eyeballs by miniscule black pollution-bits which make your eyes water and your mascara run and your hair gets quite fluffy in the panic and sometimes there are taxi drivers watching you (and I don’t think it is with admiration). Anyway, Mark decided on Sunday night to lock the buggy up halfway down the stairs with a bikechain. Presumably, to make things easier for me.

But OH! He also forgot to give me a key. So, he races off to work at 6am (What? Weird. Suspicious and a bit double-life-y, if you ask me) and I am all unusually very sorted with everything under control and we have about 4 minutes to spare in the Great Ugly Race Against Time and then I look for the key and there is none. I call him. It goes to answerphone. I swear a little bit. He calls me back, and says:

Mark: The key is on your pink key ring.

Me (really angry, but without the leisure of time to fully express it): Oh. Ok. Better go find it, then, in the minute and a half I have left! (Hangs up violently, which, of course, can’t really be done with a push button phone. But there you have it).

Of course, there is no pink key ring. It has joined the thousands of other lost, terribly important things that choose to disappear at inopportune moments. I start getting really panicky. (I should point out here that I have never been late for school drop-off, because that is a thing that Other Parents Do. I like getting the approving smiles from the staff when I arrive on time, and I am scared of having to sign the Late Book.  I am also smug, praise-seeking, and probably a bit of a dick.)

Anyway, while I am searching for the key, getting really sweary, I tell the kids to put on their jackets and wait outside but DO NOT GO UP THE STAIRS! Precious minutes tick by. I finally give up, and decide to take the very small pushchair to put the baby in, and Casper The Reckless Wonder has to go on the scooter.  Not good, but what else can I do? I really don’t want to sign the Late-Person’s Book! Because that would be like, failing.  It is 6 minutes past 8. DANGERZONE. I yell at them all to get up the stairs, quickly! NOW! But they are not where they are supposed to be. They have “disappeared”. I hear giggling. They are all rammed together, hiding under the metal, rusty stairs. Cracking up at their miserable, terrible, annoying and ill-timed joke. And the baby……where is the baby? The BABY!

The Baby, Dear Reader, has climbed up the stairs, past his brothers who have been absorbed in their parental trickery games, and is wandering along the pavement, teetering like a drunkard. And who else is in our road? None other than a carload of your local, friendly POLICEMEN. Yes, uniformed officers are just meters away from my unaccompanied little baby. It was another awesome moment of motherhood.

Luckily, though, they were there for some dramatic prostitute-y matter, and had not noticed the small unaccompanied teetering baby. This close, fellas, THIS CLOSE to real and warranted attention from the authorities.

PHEW.

And In Other News:

I have swapped my alarm clock for this Habitat one in black:

It chirps, sort of like a Robot Sparrow, with laser eyes, and a bit of bobbing of the head. It was supposed to be for Casper, but I changed my mind. But last night, on the virgin run, not a wink of sleep was to be had, because Robot Sparrow emits a red, unnerving, radioactive-esque light and bathes you in it. The numbers light the whole room in womby-red and pierce through your shuttered eyelids like a migrane. Turning Robot Sparrow to the wall just makes the light bounce back into your head. And then, when Robot Sparrow wakes you at 6:30 for the Morning Ugliness, you just want to break him. Charmless.

Anyway. So. Time for True Blood, episode three. Does Anna Paquin’s voice get less adenoidinal?