Today we said goodbye to Auntie Georgia and Uncle Gyan for a couple of weeks. They’ve been staying with us since we got back from Suffolk as they had a few issues in the staff accommodation where we all work so they took refuge in our living room while they decided their next move. They are heading back to Suffolk to see all the family for a couple of weeks, then they’ll be back in time for Christmas before flying off to Asia for a couple of months. We will definitely miss them, especially Polly who loves having them around, and it will be strange not having them around after spending so much time together but we understand this is something they want to do and it’s a great opportunity. Plus, March will come round in no time.

We decided to have a drink and bite to eat in one of the town’s many coffee shops before they left. As it was almost 12 I thought I’d be cheeky and make it lunch for Polly and I so she could go down for an early nap as she was a bit tired (I’ll come onto the reason for that later!). We ordered and sat chatting for a while, Polly being a toddler got a bit restless but wasn’t making a scene and was contained in a highchair. Then the food arrived. I’m not sure why the manager thought it was a good idea to plonk the plate straight on the highchair tray but she did. So I presumed the food was ok for Polly to eat straightaway, so I gave her a spoon and she tucked straight into her scrambled egg. I was wrong. The next moment she started screaming and throwing herself back in the high chair clearly upset. I pulled the plate away from her in case it ended up on the walls, only then did I realise it was scalding hot. Like I couldn’t touch the eggs too hot. I pulled her out the highchair and attempted to get her to drink some water which of course she refused to do. She then spent a full 5 minutes on my lap crying and writhing around. Thankfully she let me put a dummy in so she could get some comfort but she wouldn’t take anything else we offered- even the strawberry milkshake on the table- a sure sign she was not happy. Eventually she did calm down and spent the rest of the meal sat of my lap. Gyan was brilliant and started eating the scrambled egg to try and encourage her to try it again now it had cooled down which did work. Once she’s stopped crying one of the waiters came over to check our table so we explained what had happened. He went away and then came back with a simple apology from the manager. Needless to say we will not be returning there after that incident. I probably wouldn’t have been so annoyed when we left if we hadn’t had the add on of an interfering regular customer who thought he’d stick his 2 cents in. For some reason he took it upon himself to go to the counter and tell them that Polly had been upset beforehand anyway, implying that we were making a drama to try and blag a free meal. I can assure you this was not the case, all I wanted to do was make sure they as a business realised that it’s a stupid thing to stick scalding hot food down in front of a toddler without even warning us that it was warm, at the very most I would expect a proper apology after a stupid mistake, yes a gesture of goodwill would have been a free drink but that is certainly not what our game plan was when we sat down (and it wasn’t something that was even offered). It was such a stupid comment from him- I mean if I was walking down the road crying about something and then got hit by a car would he expect the paramedics to just say ‘oh well she can’t be hurt too much as she was already upset’, what bloody difference does it make if she was screaming the place down beforehand (which she wasn’t!) the point is she still burnt herself therefore she cried. This kind of ignorance really pisses me off especially when it’s used to try and shame families who dare to venture out and the get shot down by judgemental people who have no idea what actually happened. Needless to say I was raging slightly as we left and from now on I’ll be checking any food thoroughly that she gets served in a restaurant.

The explanation for the sleepiness is quite simple, we’ve hit the dreaded 18 month sleep regression and guess what? It can kiss my arse already and it’s only been a week! Gone are the nights where she gets laid down in the cot to slip off to dreamland with the help of Frank the bunny and the lullaby machine. Gone are the afternoons where she drifts off to sleep for a nap as you read her a story. Nope instead we now have an hour long battle where she simply doesn’t want to go to sleep. It’s great fun. I know it sounds mean but I’m actually pleased that Henry is getting to have just as much fun with it as me as it means we definitely have more sympathy for each other instead of the old days where he couldn’t understand why I’d snap at him if he came home from work noisily after it had taken me 2 hours to get her to sleep. It’s definitely been a team effort this week in getting through this one and we are naively hoping it’s a very short regression that ends with her going back to being a delight to put to bed, especially as she’d recently started this new thing of sleeping through (I’m trying not to brag I just want it written down in ink that she did do it for a while so if it never happens again I’ll know it wasn’t a figment of my sleep deprived baby brained imagination).

Well time to sign off now as this has been a longer rant than I meant it to be, plus it’s time to have an early time before work this evening, needless to say I’ll be making sure Polly’s food is a sensible temperature before she even catches sight of it.