Toddlers and Christmas parties

Travelling with toddlers has got nothing on travelling with toddlers to Christmas parties.

Up until today I wasn’t aware that one required a certain level of athleticism to attend the annual office Christmas party.  This year's party had to have made it into the top ten of the worst Christmas Parties of all time.

It started off so promising…

All kitted out in our finery, the short one wearing her self-proclaimed ‘pretty dress’, we all headed into the city to ‘Australia’s best steak restaurant’.  Commanding spectacular views along the waterfront, we were treated to a private function room, great wine, good company and scintillating conversation.

Following a scrumptious entrée, and eagerly awaiting the main, someone decided it was a good idea to take the short one from the confines of her high chair for a ‘cuggle'.  As a result of this spontaneous act, this person has been scarred for life and will probably either never eat steak again or at the very least never have children.

I have never, ever, ever, seen anything quite like it in my life.  If I was a proctologist or a gastroenterologist it may have constituted a normal day in the office, but in a fine restaurant, it beggars belief.

I suppose it was reminiscent of what may happen after one enjoys, so to speak, the after effects of an enema. I am not really sure, and to be honest, I don’t care to be that familiar with the symptomatology. But being somewhat responsible for whatever deems itself necessary to emit itself from the short one’s entrails, I sadly had the job of dealing with it.

Not unlike Europe, baby change facilities are hard to come by, so desperate times called for desperate measures.  I had no other choice but to put together a make shift change space on the floor of the ladies toilets. Not that I am an expert on all things digestive, but I did question the sheer volume of matter however, and how it was at all possible from such a small person.

Her ‘pretty dress’ was relegated to the ‘oh my God, you can never wear that again in your lifetime dress', as I frantically tore things out of the baby bag looking for a change of clothes.  At this point in time, the short one reached in and said, ‘Hat, mummy,’ as if that made all the difference.  

Standing there in nothing else but a nappy and a skewiff hat, smiling up at me, I just had to smile back through welling tears of desperation. Just then the piped music became obvious and the short one started dancing…I just shook my head and wondered at the complete obliviousness.

There was nothing else for it, we just had to go home.  After having consumed one glass of wine, I insisted on catching a taxi with the short one.  Daddy would follow in our car  after dinner.

A short while later, the short one and I arrived home safely with my steak in a take away container, to realise a small problem, well, two small problems actually:

1. I have the parking ticket in my handbag and
2. Daddy has the house keys…

It is at this point, forlornly standing in the front yard, in the pitch dark, drizzling rain, with an unhappy baby, that I think to myself...a certain level of athleticism is always a handy commodity…nothing is insurmountable…

Except... for our joint.

It’s OK. I am a mother and with that supposedly comes a range of mother talents. Immediately after giving birth we instantly become more resourceful and multiskilled; more capable and adept; in fact not unlike Bear Gryls.

After trying all possible cavities, I remember something that will allow us entry…it may also afford me a DIY hysterectomy, but it had to be done.

Finally, success enabled us entry and the short one into a bath, a change of clothes and bed, and me…

...well, I enjoyed a very nice medium-rare rib fillet, served with a red wine jus and a glass of sauvignon blanc!