...that is what's required to leave the house these days with two children.
It starts when Daisy is down for her morning nap. First, packing the change bag, checking I have nappies for both, wipes, spare clothes for Daisy, muslins, cups of water for both, many assorted snacks (I have learned that these can be the difference between leaving somewhere fairly peacefully, and full on toddler tantrum meltdown), money, keys, phone... Next, get out coats and shoes all ready to go, then, get the double buggy out of the van and set up, get Daisy up, load them both into pushchair (using biscuit as bribe to get toddler to sit in) and drag it over the threshold.
Today we went to the soft play centre up the road, so went through all of the above before setting off. I was dreading this outing, as the last time we went, Jamie set off the alarm in the lift and I almost died of embarrassment. So I was feeling stressed from the outset about how I was going to negotiate getting them both out of the pushchair and pay, sign in, etc, while also stopping Jamie from getting anywhere near to where he could "press the button". Well as seems to be pretty usual of late, I ended up holding Jamie by the arm while he kicked and screamed, with Daisy under the other arm, trying to get money out of my purse and pay with...well, I had no arms left! So had to momentarily let go of Jamie and hope for the best - luckily he headed straight to the play area instead of to the lift.
Anyway, once we'd got all that out of the way, we had a nice time. I can recommend chasing a toddler round a soft play centre, from the bottom to the top, down the slide and round again, all while carrying an 8 month old, as an alternative to gym membership! Exhausting! We managed a quick trip into the baby area too, and Daisy loved being in the ball pit. I even managed to negotiate leaving the centre fairly successfully, with the help of a pack of Organix crisps.
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