I took Catherine to school this morning and after dropping her off walked down to the car with Alexandra. I was pressing the little button on the car remote and wondering why it wouldn’t unlock. It took me a few tries of the button to realise that I was pressing the “lock” button…not the “unlock”… [sigh]
Am writing this in present tense although it happened on Friday…
Catherine had her first tuckshop order today.
“Why?!”, I hear you all ask, “Surely you would have been up early enough this morning to make her lunch?!”
I can hear Scott exclaiming, “But you made her lunch this morning and put it in her lunchbox!”
Ah yes, indeed I did. I even put the said lunchbox into her school bag together with her water bottle. It’s just a shame that when we got to school this morning that I realised I didn’t put the school bag into the car…
The day started poorly. We used to keep a glass jar containing change on top of the fridge. Somehow this jar had shifted so it was sitting on the top of the freezer door – resulting in a crude booby trap, eagerly awaiting the first hapless soul who needed to retrieve his precious coffee.
After finishing vacuuming glass shards I headed off to catch the bus to the city. When I got off the bus I instinctively patted my pockets to check for keys and wallet – and discovered the wallet was missing. Thankfully I had only taken four steps before realising this, and another passenger saw the wallet on the seat and handed it back to me.
There are two important lessons that others can learn from my misfortune. The first is prevention – where possible and practical avoid scenarios where an accident is likely to occur. Since the glass jar was near the fridge door all it took was some other unrelated event (such as moving a phone book) to shift the jar to a dangerous position. Prevention is very important for parents and is why we ‘baby-proof’ a house by doing such things as covering electrical powerpoints, and putting locks on cupboards containing dangerous items (such as cleaning fluid).
The second lesson is the importance of routines and processes to address risks and catch mistakes. I habitually check for my phone and pat my pockets whenever I leave my desk or restaurant table – because I know I can leave items behind. Even if the kindly passenger didn’t see my wallet I would have detected it was missing almost straight away.
Another process I have is to never put the petrol cap on top of the car when refuelling, in case I forget to replace it and drive off. Thankfully this has never happened – but it’s something I want to avoid.
Mistakes and accidents are going to happen but there are simple and common-sense ways to minimise the risk. Let me know if you have any tricks or suggestions!
Last Thursday, the girls and I walked to meet Scott at the bus stop when he got home. After the exuberant greetings (from the girls 
) Catherine decided she’d like to play on the slide and the swing. We gave her about 5 minutes playtime and then said it was time to go. She protested (of course!) and got off the swing to run to another piece of play equipment. Unfortunately she didn’t watch where she was going and ran straight into the crossbar of the A-frame of the swing set.
She cried.
I cuddled her.
She cried some more.
Scott said, “What’s that above her eye?”
We looked.
We saw blood.
Scott rang the doctor’s surgery and they told us to go straight to the Mater. So we walked home, got the nappy bag and some food to tide the girls over (this is around dinnertime) and went to the hospital. It was a pretty painless wait to see the Dr and get treated etc. The nurses were wonderful with Catherine, so patient! Catherine didn’t need any stitches, just a little sticky bandage.
At home before going to the hospital
As you can see, she’s smiling already!
Dinner was late of course, so we just got some fast food.
Catherine very happy about dinner!
The morning after…the poor little sausage!
She’s fine now with just a little scab and yellow “eyeshadow”.