They happen in threes...

OH. MY. GOD. Excuse me, but I'd just like to make the point that SOMEBODY/ANYBODY should have warned me about the things your children dream up to age you faster. I mean seriously. They know I have a High School reunion in a few weeks and after the last week of my life, any lingering smugness that I may just look just a smidge younger than I actually am (let's say 35 rather than 37 years, 9 months and 17 days) has been vaporised.

I am convinced they're doing it on purpose btw (that's trendy youff for By The Way, Diana).

Oh I shouldn't make light of it. That would make me sound like a worse mother than I actually am. You see it was horrible and serious. Miss 3.5 was bitten by a spider. Mmm. Nothing quite like having your husband tell you that your child is hysterical because she has been bitten by a spider that she is describing as black and red and has fang marks in her arm. Trust me interwebs it ages you.

We calmed her down, and whilst hubby hit google for advice, I tried to ease the story of what happened out of her. No easy feat, as anyone who has chatted to a pre-schooler will understand. She was climbing a tree in our front yard, came inside and there was a spider on her, which bit her and she knocked it onto the floor. She is was red and black, but then changed her story and said it was gold with red and black on it.

Meanwhile hubby had done a heap of research, and we knew that if Miss 3.5 had been bitten by a red-back she'd be in serious pain by this point. She clearly wasn't. We kept her calm and under close scrutiny, but once a band-aid had been applied to the bite-mark she continued as if nothing whatsoever had happened. Okay, now with a very healthy respect for creepy crawlies, but fine nonetheless.

See here she is, just fine...

Of course, having two disasters in the space of a week (see below for visit to hospital story) has led to many many people kindly pointing out that these things happen in threes.

Weeeelll - as Sam from Bewitched used to say - actually the spider thing technically could be counted as our third disaster of the week. We did have another one. A poo disaster.

A poo disaster involving my personal nemesis - the playground equipment at McDonalds.

Many of you will remember the incident at McDonalds where Miss 3.5 took off all her clothes and refused to come down from the highest heights of the McDonalds play equipment. Full horrible story here. We do not eat Maccers much, but lately hubby was lured back by the McAngus burger.

Everything was going smoothly and so when Miss 3.5 asked to go and play I only hesitated for a split second before saying okay. Well, hubby and I finished our burgers and went to get her. Grinning from ear to ear she whizzes out of the slide and into our arms. Awww. A kodak moment.

Until I glance in the direction of her trousers, and wonder out loud to hubby, "What's that coming out of the top of her pants?" Pretty much at the same moment he says, "What's that smell?"

Oh crap.

We rush her into the bathrooms, and quickly ascertain that this is one that we're not going to fix easily. We stripped off her bottom half, bundled up the clothes and threw them in the bin - trust me, you'd have done the same thing - cleaned her as best we could, wrapped her in hubby's jacket and made a run for it.

I still have the compulsive urge to wash my hands every single time I think of it.

So. One week, three disasters. I've aged.

sigh.