Imagine my terror when I recently arrived at the zoo at the height of school holidays and discovered the stroller wasn’t in the car.
“Oh, come on!” I can hear the usual people pipe up, though admittedly they’ve been pretty quiet in my head recently. “Your youngest child is almost three and more than capable of walking by himself.”
“But what about the lunches, snacks, drinkypots, jumpers, nappy stuff, change of clothes and (inevitably) Mr Justice’s backpack containing a cubic metre of McRubbish and The Big Book Of Knowledge, aptly named because it weighs more than a four-year-old wearing a diving belt?” is my quick(ish) retort to such people. “Are they able to walk by themselves??”
Honestly, I don’t know how people go anywhere without a stroller. They must either have trained their children to trek for days through the jungle carrying their own body-weight in provisions, or they just buy their food and drinks while out at the kind of prices that would make employing a full-time Porter a more economical option.
Luckily I was meeting my more-prepared friend Mistress M, who did bring her stroller but who also turned out to be slightly less prepared than I because she’d left her wallet at home, with her zoo membership card in it.
You know how they say “getting there is half the fun”? Sometimes it also takes half the energy. By the time Mistress M had blagged her way past the Zoo Door Bitches armed only with a Medicare letter and her smile, we’d sorted out parking tickets and we’d finally started the negotiations of Which Animal To See First, I felt a wave of fatigue and was ready to go home. But with a grand total of seven children under our care (six of whom were under 5 years and two of whom were Not Of Our Loins), we were not going to get out of it so easily.
Still, I managed to rise to the occasion. Normally I have this “sense” of three kids about me. I don’t have to count, I just know when there are three and when there are not three. After an hour or so of constantly counting seven heads as we wandered from cage to cage, I started to get a sense of seven, too. Such is my skill.
But then Mistress M and I made a fatal mistake: we tried to have an actual conversation. In the time that it took to say “Oh, you used to watch Survivor, too!”, we managed to lose a child. And of course it had to be one of the children that wasn’t ours. I put the remaining six children in lock down mode (using an artful distribution of sugary snacks and a rousing sing-a-long), while Mistress M ran around the zoo desperately shouting “Bella! Bella!” (for of course, it was she – the child known as Cyclone Bella).
Thanks to a Lost Child Announcement and a network of zoo attendants armed with walky-talkies and taser guns, she was returned to us after ten long minutes. And, of course, it was then and only then that I really fell apart and clutched at Bella and Mistress M like a drowning sailor.
When I asked Cyclone Bella where she’d been, she said “Oh, I was just sitting down.” Which I kind of understood, except if I were to have gone missing at that very moment, it would be more a case of “Oh, I was just sitting down and alternating between breathing into a paper bag and swigging from a bumper-sized flagon of wine.”
Anyway, the long and the short of it is this: next school holidays, I’m definitely employing a Porter. He can carry the snacks (etc), The Big Book of Knowledge, the paper bag and the wine. And Cyclone Bella. And probably me.
You’d think they’d have an empty cage somewhere that would be a suitable pen for any unattended children found wondering the zoo. (next to the spider monkeys perhaps?)
In fact, if marketed correctly, it could a real draw.
By the way, I believe I saw the “Zoo Door Bitches” in concert back in the late 70s. Glad to hear they’ve settled down and found real jobs.
“Zoo Door Bitches” is such a great name for a band.
It could even be a good replacement name for isnack2.0. I can feel an Open Letter to Kraft coming on…
I respectfully acknowledge another brilliant post and decline from further comment. Mr Mills wins the Best Comment prize once again.
Ah, you could have been a contender, MM. Still, I respect your respectfulness.
once lost my son at netball. They stopped every game until he was found! Almost needed a police escort to get out. Who knew netball could be such a violent sport? And where was he? Why playing in the gutters way down the back with his new found friend. Boys in dirty gutters, of course, why didn’t we look there first – der.
Boys and gutters, eh? I’m often finding my husband in a gutter, too, but for different reasons.
The stroller is so essential. I put my nearly 3 in a stroller everywhere we go. Everywhere. I fear one day he will realise what life is like outside of that thing in a shopping centre and my shopping life will be over.
We went to the Ekka this year and forgot to bring it with us. I seriously considered pulling the pin, such was my fear.
Bet your heart was just about jumping out of your chest whilst looking for her but. EEk.
It’s funny because I was really calm until she was returned to us. And then I felt this huge rush of adrenalin, like I’d just gone bungee jumping or paragliding, but less expensive.
You are a brave, yet crazy, lady.
But you all knew that already, right?
At least you can console yourself with the fact you are skilful enough – or mad enough – to tackle it with 7 children who are NOT tied together a la mountaineer style with occystraps or wrangle them with that other delightful* invention: the child leash.
Those people just don’thave the Spirit Of Adventure when they tie them up to go anywhere.
Or maybe they are just saner than us????
❤ J
*not used in its everyday context
I’d go for saner. Much much saner.
see when i read your tweets i was impressed. Now I am impresseder.
I have no idea how you managed to lose only one.
After the Dreadful Incident of Target one christmas holidays around about december 24th, I have kept my children away from all crowded areas during school holidays….the panic attacks on the way there are enough for me…
My youngest got out of stroller at age 4, I was bereft. For a very long time I would not leave the house with children without other parent and thus Dad became sherpa – and still is several years on – a walking, talking sherpa and grabage bin…very useful…
But yes, well done, very very well done.
Impressed. Very.
Oooh, I think I’ve had one of those Dread Incidents in Target in the Christmas shopping crowds. Sympatico!
And Dads can be very useful as packhorses, except when they’re rude enough to either be at work or at the pub.
I had to lose the stroller when my youngest was 18 months as we moved somewhere where it was not compatible with the local surfaces. I cried and miss it every day.
But, I only have 2 to keep under control at any one time. 7! Very ambitious. And how scary to look around and only see 6. I’m very impressed you only fell apart when the cyclone was returned to you. x
Thank you BiB.
Ambitious is one way of putting it. Incredibly stupid is another.
Can I just say people who tut tut over children still in strollers are usually people who do not walk their kids anywhere – they drive them everywhere strapped in their big 4WD’s – I dare you to ask me why my children are in a stroller after a day of walking/PT why they’re in a stroller I dare ya. Maybe touched a nerve, maybe a gross generalistion that is probably true.
I may be brave enough to take seven kids to the zoo, but I’m not brave enough to ask you that question MGK. Not brave enough at all.
I get the whole – “she should be walking by now” thing from strangers. If I had the time I would point out that she walks just fine – just not necessarily in a straight line or in a direction of my choosing. It’s like walking a damn cat. And yes, I have walked a cat so I know exactly what i’m talking about.
I blogged about people asking me this question many moons ago.
https://notdrowning.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/up-in-arms/
Oh, and I blogged about children on leashes too. (see comment below)
I freaked out in a crowded museum in DC because the 4 year old was half the height of everyone else and got lost in the crowd. Everyone else in our group wanted to shoot me because I was such a nervous nelly – uncharacteristically so, for me.
And strollers? So happy to be done with strollers. And diaper bags. So so happy.
Will be very happy the day I can throw the diaper bag out. How many times have I been caught short and had to do some very dodgy improvisation? Ugh…
OK. Worst nightmare–and I’m so glad all turned out safe. But I totally hear you about the stroller. I bought a new one recently and absolutely regret downsizing. Nothing but the kid fits in the damn thing. And the other two kids just complain the whole time we’re out that they have to hold their own juice cups/sweatshirts/snacks/ETC. What about ME? I want to yell. There’s no where for COFFEE on this thing!
But
I digress…
I used to have one of those drinks holders on my Valco Mobile Home but the children saw it as something to hang themselves off like the monkeys they are. It lasted about five minutes. *Sigh*.
I hear ya on the stroller.
And can I just add that most of those who tut tut over child leashes have no problem with leashing a child in a sitting position (stroller) yet can’t face the idea of leashing the child to allowing them to walk safely!
Can’t really agree with you on the whole child leashes (including leashes masquerading as backpacks) and strollers are the same thing. It is not inherently unsafe for a child to walk without a leash – that’s more of a choice. Whereas, I’ve had friends whose little ones have fallen out of strollers because they weren’t buckled up!
I’d have to counter-argue that sometimes it can be unsafe for a child to walk without a leash – I never saw myself using one and resented all suggestions that I get one for my eldest (tearaway) child. But then… well, read the post:
https://notdrowning.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/personal-best/
Nothing like losing another person’s child. Try doing it while you’re on the clock.