Invited for lunch

We were invited for lunch today. It’s always a bit of a risk taking your children to somebody else’s house. You never quite know what will happen. Will they behave? Will they say that the food is “disgusting”? Will they knock over their drinks? Be sick? Cry? Fight? or some other acutely embarrassing thing? It is worse when you don’t really know the people that you are visiting as at least friends might not judge you too harshly based on the behaviour of your children.

I had to take Daniel in his Kermit pyjamas because he refused to take them off this morning before we went to church and there wasn’t time after church to fight with him over appropriate clothing to wear to the Archdeacon’s house for lunch. He had been in a bit of a funny mood all morning and had burst into tears when he realised that Dominic wasn’t with us. I think he thought we’d lost him but Dominic has joined the choir so was sitting with them instead.

We were a bit late leaving after the service, mainly because the service was longer than normal so we were a bit late for lunch but it didn’t seem to matter and, in spite of my worries, none of the children managed to embarrass me. In fact, they were rather good. They ate their food, didn’t complain and were relatively polite. Daniel even said “more peas please” which isn’t something you hear a child saying very often.

After lunch the Archdeacon’s wife brought out the most amazing train set. More remarkable was the fact that Dominic managed to get it all joined up with two loops which interacted with each other.

In spite of the fact that they kids were relatively happy playing with the trains, we decided to go for a bit of a walk, which involved a climbing frame…

as well as feeding the ducks….

The sun came out and they all had a good time except that

…. we dropped Naomi’s penguin, Flomp, in the water and

….. Daniel fell over and got covered in mud.

Surely I would have learnt by now to ALWAYS CARRY WIPES with me! So, Daniel had to go back to the Archdeacon’s house with mud on his hands and face! He was not happy and was particularly upset that his shoes were muddy.

We managed to dry Flomp out in the back of the car with the sun shining on him and we wiped most of the mud off Daniel, although he will need a bath.

All in all, a successful trip. No children lost and no embarrassing moments. You never know, we might get invited back.