Downward Slide

Oh well this is going to teach me for being all sodding smug about Breakfast isn't it.

To make matters worse I had, in a fit of organisation, saved a little list of things to post about.  Breakfast photos, it said, raiding kids piggy banks, rave about how awesome first night of lectures was.

sigh.

Well, breakfast was an un-mitigated disaster.  I didn't take photos, no, I was too busy trying to persuade Miss 4 to eat something, anything.  She toyed with four blueberries for forty minutes and then, after my patience had well and truly run out, did a back-flip (not literally) and scoffed crumpets and honey.  To say that when I departed for school I was just slightly frazzled would be a gross understatement.

And yes, I did raid the kids piggy banks.  Hubby's work has deferred and deferred again on his pay. The sum we were supposed to receive on Friday when we ran out of cash, had still not appeared on Wednesday morning despite myriad promises.  Both cars were out of petrol and I knew I wouldn't get to school and back after driving around with the empty light on for four days.  So I scraped together $10 from the kids piggy banks thinking I'd get that much petrol when I got to school.

Had a busy and productive morning with a few school related social things and then ended up in Hornsby Westfield with an hour to spare before the afternoon school run.  After a year of unemployment , you can imagine the parlous state of our credit card.  Still I decided to tentatively try it out in Coles so that I could feed the children tonight and was rather chuffed when it actually worked. HURRAY. Funds.  So, I lavishly spent my $10 of shrapnel on some Sushi and a drink and then beetled off to the petrol station and filled up the car.

Phew. All was going okay.

Until the credit card was declined at the petrol station.

There followed the most humiliating twenty minutes of my life.  And now I must be at that petrol station by 8am tomorrow morning or my name will be handed to the police.

Naturally I will be there waving cash and continuing to grovel and apologise and offer to exchange my second-born child, as hubby's pay FINALLY went into our account about twenty minutes ago.  YAY, looking forward to that happy experience.

Then I arrived at school, fifteen minutes late, parked in the wrong place and was gently given a list of Miss 4's transgressions for the day.  These included hitting a teacher for the second day running, kicking the door of her sisters class room and literally running amok to the extent that her teacher had to find a substitute to mind her class whilst she dealt with the situation.

Great.

So, a felon AND worst parent on earth.  Wonderful.

Well things couldn't get worse than that? Could they?

When I got home we only had three chickens. One of the Australorps has gone.  I'm presuming she either got taken by a bird of prey or flew over the fence and got eaten by next doors Kelpie - who savages possums whenever the poor things set a toe-nail in her yard.

Then I rang my mother and cried.