a cinderella story

By 10am this morning I felt like I was living my very own Cinderella story, sadly minus the handsome prince (he's busy at work), the beautiful dress and shoes (I'm in my tracksuit and trainers) and the fairy godmother (she's on vacation....I have no idea when she will be back.)

All the other important elements were there though: the carriage (my MPV on the school run), the mopping and cleaning caused by the three ugly stepsisters (actually my children who are not technically ugly or sisters...there are 2 boys and a girl.) But there are three of them with very high demands so for the purpose of this blog the analogy will have to do.

And let us not forget the mice.

Thankfully we dont have a mouse infestation..but mice did feature heavily in the weekly Jo Jingles class I dragged my 2 year old and 8 month old to at 9 this morning. As usual it was tipping down with rain as I arrived with no parking space available within a 10 mile radius (well..not quite that far but it felt like it carrying two children with a combined weight of nearly 4 stone.)

We have been attending this "music appreciation" class for a few years now and I have yet to appreciate the music made by 16 under 3's together. Dont get me wrong..I dont have high expectations as far as music goes and my taste in music is questionable at best. But the noise created by allowing all those children access to drums and beaters is enough to make you want to quit parenthood altogether and go work in a library.

About halfway through the class the very enthusiastic teacher declared that we all needed to get up and for the next song we were going to pretend to run quickly like little mice and then slowly like a garden snail. I was up for the slowly part..but running? Like a mouse? At 9am? Really?

I tried to stay sat down.

Unfortunately I was the only one.

To my surprise all the other mums seemed fairly up for it. Some of them even made little squeaky noises. I kept an eye out for the hidden cameras as I was slightly concerned this was some kind of trick and that the footage will appear on YouTube later.

This mouse incident is only the latest in a series of embarressing incidents the teacher has made us do recently. Thankfully the last one happened to my husband the one and only time he has ever attended the class. That time he had to demonstrate Morris Dancing, complete with little bells on his knees and scarves. I got disco dancing and ballet the weeks I went and needless to say my husband was pretty devastated about his lot.

When he came back...in a slight state of shock...he asked if this kind of public humiliation happened to me alot. I wanted to deny that my life was one big humiliation and paint a picture of a glamourous Yummy Mummy effortlessly gliding through the day while looking fantastic in designer outfits. But I just couldn't. My tracksuit still had the remains of the babys lunch on it.