Thank Crunchie

Having finished the Harvest service sheet for our Harvest Festival (Sunday 26th September at All Saints' Parish Church High Wycombe 9.45am) and sent off the email reminders for next week's meeting of our Youth Council and a meeting for youth leaders the week after, I actually managed to leave the office behind today and on a Friday too! It is a strange thing when you do lots of hours in the evenings and weekends that you sometimes forget that this means you can have times when you don't work during the day and still do a full week of work.

So today after a quick coffee with my Dad who had just got back from Yorkshire and a few days at a festival (a classical music festival that is - he can do texting but he's not THAT trendy a 71yr old!) I set off for Milton Keynes to see my friend Claire from the SAOMC.

We had a splendid lunch together at the Swan near her church and then in the afternoon when her children (4 and 12) came home we had a splendid time with German homework, a sleeping bag FULL of cuddly dog toys, cups of tea made in her daughter's play kitchen, a salad carefully cooked in her play cooker, and all to the accompaniment of Daddy Day Care on DVD!

After a lovely family meal, Claire's husband let me read through the Panto The Three Little PYGs which he's written for their young people to perform. Some marvellous jokes and puns even if some of them were HAMMED up a bit too much!

After all that, Claire seemed worried that I might have wasted my time off.Personally I thought it was all WONDERFUL fun.

Then the newsletter from SAOMC came through with these observations on they joys of parenthood and I thought they were bit mixed but still worthy of note:

Grandchildren are God’s reward for not killing your own children.
Mothers of teens now know why some animals eat their young.
Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said.
The main purpose of holding children’s parties is to remind yourself that there are children more awful than your own.
We childproof our homes, but they are still getting in.
Be nice to your kids. They will choose your nursing home one day.
If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: “take two aspirin” and “keep away from children”

A bit harsh in places but that comes from the single person who doesn't live with them. Nevertheless this was my favourite one:

You spend the first two years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up.

Think on!