Sunday saw the annual summer BBQ creep around again at Small Child's nursery. It's a great family party to which you can even bring grandparents - even those that might not approve of sending children to nursery!
Anyway, after much scowling at passing black clouds, hurried packing of every type of weather gear and making sure we put the half bottle of champagne in the cooler, we set off! We thought a half bottle would be best as it might be considered inappropriate for one parent, in this case Other Half as it was my turn to drive, to be tipsy whilst in control of Small Child. I use the term "control" loosely as Small Child definitely seems to have developed severe authority issues of late! Anyhoo, back to the BBQ, as a parent I am beginning to cotton on that this type of event is great for spotting the signs of Competitive Family Syndrome (CFS) . Known symptoms of CFS include exhibiting one or more of the following attributes: Producing a child with tousled ringlets, one or both parents must rate highly on the attractiveness scale, your child(ren) are clothed in White Company, Boden or at the very least, quirky but cool mis-matched looks from GAP, you are a sun tanned mummy who is just the right shade of burnished gold and if you drive a black 4 X 4 then that really helps! So it was all down to CFS that I spent ten minutes deciding if I should I wear my gladiator sandals with skinny jeans and brave the questionable cloud formations or play it safe and go with the perma-trend tan colour uggs? Having tried on the beautiful (and very comfortable) glads and adjusted the jean length just enough to show them off, there wasn't really any choice in the matter! Any shoe obsessed woman will know that style ALWAYS wins over practicality. Shoe dilemma's apart, a great time was had by all...especially Small Child. She exhausted herself after several hectic encounters with the bouncy castle, a sausage cramming fest, fast and furious playground scooter rally racing finished off with a quick ice cream fix. There were wine quaffing parents languishing on blankets, no doubt numbing the pain of knowing that they would soon be trying to pacify their over tired little darlings who had consumed one too many neon pink iced fairy cakes. One parent in particular had already downed three quarters of plastic beaker of sauvignon blanc within ten minutes of setting up the gazebo! And to top it all there was a real life, living and breathing WAG attending the festivities! (For those who don't read Grazia, Hello or OK magazine - this is the term given to Wives And Girlfriends of footballers - yes really!). As their child attends nursery, her husband who plays for a local city team, had volunteered to be in goal for the BBQ penalty shoot out - imagine a lot of alcohol fuelled, red faced, dads buoyed up by the bravado of it all wanting to "get one in the net" and you can just about picture the scene! She didn't look like your atypical WAG; not an orange tan, bling-tastic It bag or four carat diamond in sight! She was well dressed, smiley and spent most of her time pacifying her toddler - but I did spot the Gucci nappy bag at twenty paces!!
Anyway, after much scowling at passing black clouds, hurried packing of every type of weather gear and making sure we put the half bottle of champagne in the cooler, we set off! We thought a half bottle would be best as it might be considered inappropriate for one parent, in this case Other Half as it was my turn to drive, to be tipsy whilst in control of Small Child. I use the term "control" loosely as Small Child definitely seems to have developed severe authority issues of late! Anyhoo, back to the BBQ, as a parent I am beginning to cotton on that this type of event is great for spotting the signs of Competitive Family Syndrome (CFS) . Known symptoms of CFS include exhibiting one or more of the following attributes: Producing a child with tousled ringlets, one or both parents must rate highly on the attractiveness scale, your child(ren) are clothed in White Company, Boden or at the very least, quirky but cool mis-matched looks from GAP, you are a sun tanned mummy who is just the right shade of burnished gold and if you drive a black 4 X 4 then that really helps! So it was all down to CFS that I spent ten minutes deciding if I should I wear my gladiator sandals with skinny jeans and brave the questionable cloud formations or play it safe and go with the perma-trend tan colour uggs? Having tried on the beautiful (and very comfortable) glads and adjusted the jean length just enough to show them off, there wasn't really any choice in the matter! Any shoe obsessed woman will know that style ALWAYS wins over practicality. Shoe dilemma's apart, a great time was had by all...especially Small Child. She exhausted herself after several hectic encounters with the bouncy castle, a sausage cramming fest, fast and furious playground scooter rally racing finished off with a quick ice cream fix. There were wine quaffing parents languishing on blankets, no doubt numbing the pain of knowing that they would soon be trying to pacify their over tired little darlings who had consumed one too many neon pink iced fairy cakes. One parent in particular had already downed three quarters of plastic beaker of sauvignon blanc within ten minutes of setting up the gazebo! And to top it all there was a real life, living and breathing WAG attending the festivities! (For those who don't read Grazia, Hello or OK magazine - this is the term given to Wives And Girlfriends of footballers - yes really!). As their child attends nursery, her husband who plays for a local city team, had volunteered to be in goal for the BBQ penalty shoot out - imagine a lot of alcohol fuelled, red faced, dads buoyed up by the bravado of it all wanting to "get one in the net" and you can just about picture the scene! She didn't look like your atypical WAG; not an orange tan, bling-tastic It bag or four carat diamond in sight! She was well dressed, smiley and spent most of her time pacifying her toddler - but I did spot the Gucci nappy bag at twenty paces!!
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