Nobody Cares About Ducks (and other reasons why I didn't enjoy Today)

As today drew to a close, I asked myself if there were three good reasons why I shouldn't just leave the sleeping children and race out to the shops to grab some dark chocolate and a bottle of plonk. UnFortunately, I found my three good reasonsso here I sit with Hot Chocolate filling the gigantesque mug that Mrs Tantrum sent me all the way from Seattle to tell you, in no particular order, the elements of my giant Wednesday-related Whinge.

1. I woke in absolute agony having somehow developed a massive muscle spasm involving the huge muscles down the side of the back while I slept (?) I was having trouble breathing. It was awful. By mid-morning though, it had gone.

2. Anna-Lucia threw the most amazing tantrum at kindy, not wanting to stay in the car and wait, then wanting to stay after all, by which time I'd got Joseph out of his seat, so we were all going in for heavens' sake. Screamed, wouldn't walk, refused to enter, howled while I dashed in and refused to walk back to the car when we were done. Great with a sore back.

3. I have a vague recollection of Mr de Elba confessing the dog "caused herself to become lighter" on the floor in the garage overnight where she was allowed to sleep due to the cold wet weather outside. I have only just now remembered about it. I hope I wasn't supposed to do something about it.

4. Certain infringements were committed during a play-date this afternoon. I cannot point the finger but I am left to deal with juice in the bathroom waste bin and spitwads on the carpet. I can however point the finger at the host child being responsible for inviting his friends in from playing in the gravel outside to jump on his parents' bed and hide under the covers. The guests, to their credit, declined the invitation.

5. On both the 'to' and 'from' legs of a trip out today, we saw a mother and father duck with eight little ducklings wandering up and down outside the fence around the Waterbird Habitat. This type of duck:
They clearly wanted to get back in, as that is where ducks live around these parts, but couldn't find a way in through the fence. Numerous phone calls showed that:
(a) the Department of Parks and Wildlife doesn't care about ducks - they only care for protected species.
(b) the local Wildlife Carers don't care about ducks - unless they are sick or injured and I was not prepared to do the ducks that 'favour'
(c) the Animal Control section of the Regional Council doesn't care about ducks - they only care about domestic animals who are doing the wrong thing
(d) the Department of Primary Industries doesn't care about ducks - they only care about some other category of animal whose criteria I can't remember anymore.

I had guests. I didn't have time to call the RSPCA, nor did I have time to "herd the ducks in through a gate" as suggested by one of the non-duck-caring groups above.

Nobody Cares About Ducks. And that makes me mad.

6. I accidentally spelled "duck" as "dick" a few times in point #5 above and cannot be absolutely sure I've fixed all these typos, as spellcheck seems to think dicks are okay.

7. I'm not going to list this other annoying thing from the Playdate, so I will mark its existence with this dot point (#7) and use the space to tell you two wonderful things:
(a) the terrible mess in the living room that has been bothering me for days? Can be tidied up in 55 seconds by four eager children wanting to beat the clock. Set a timer for 1 minute, give them the boxes and say GO! Done.
(b) Nat had two friends over. Boys. His age. And yet I still heard this:
Anna-Lucia: Can I play wiff you Nat? Nat: Yes! You can be on my team, Anna!

Actually no, scratch all that and forget all the crying my poor Joseph did today.

It was a pretty good day after all.

Just not for Ducks.