3 IN A MORNING

D and I decided to give the girls a treat and take them to the cinema this morning, A's been before but Alice hadn't.

Before we left I went to get some bottled water from the drinks' cupboard, when a bottle of rose smashed at my feet, then I cut myself clearing up the mess. I'd got up relatively early to put the rubbish out and thought I'd be organised and get the car out while I was in the garage, by the time we were ready to go it had iced up (yes, it's that cold).

The girls (and the other children in the audience) were quite restless - that's only a reflection on how awful the chipmunk film was. We'd planned to take the girls out to lunch after the film, but then changed our minds - we decided that they were probably too full of popcorn and had sat for long enough.

Instead I decided to go shopping - there was a N*xt just around the corner. I bought Alice some lovely clothes for the springtime but somewhere between the checkout and the car (less than a minute) we lost Flat Panda, I very quickly got Alice into the car (as I was halfway through the process when we realised) and then retraced my steps. No sign of FP anywhere, I asked every member of staff that I saw and frantically looked at everyone I passed. Nothing. It was a 20 minute drive home and Alice howled all the way, she wasn't even comforted when I found her one of the other FPs we have at home - it was the actual LOSS of FP that really distressed her. I spent a lot of the afternoon searching for another but it was discontinued a while ago and I can't find one in Europe or America online.

A traumatic and stressful morning. Luckily the afternoon was calmer. After Alice had recovered she found the other 3 FPs (and I'm still panicking that we'll lose the others!) and put them in timeout!