Why I will never just scan a text message again

Last week, I learnt a very valuable lesson about the importance of reading text messages properly instead of just scanning through them, like many multi-tasking mums usually do.

 

That’s how, on St Patrick’s Day, poor Bruiser found himself marching through the village, the only child in the parade dressed up as a birthday present.

 

The lovely woman who runs the local art studio sent out a text to the parents of her young students two days before Paddy’s Day, inviting the kids to join her float. I felt she could have given us a bit more notice to get the costumes organised, but knew it would be a lovely opportunity for the kids to march in their first parade.

 

Manchild was ordered to bring home two large cardboard boxes from work and I bought the wrapping paper and party hats.

 

In an unprecedented fit of creativity on St Patrick’s morning, Manchild made two birthday present costumes, cutting out holes for the heads and arms and wrapping the boxes. Not actually as easy as it sounds; each box took him about an hour.

 

He headed over to the meeting point for the parade participants with an extremely excited Princess Firstborn and Bruiser, ahead of myself and Baba. A slight wave of uneasiness hit me when I got his text: “Over at the GAA club, no sign of any other kids dressed as presents.”

 

I quickly checked the text message, which confirmed that for once, I had the venue and the time right. I rang one of the other mums who told me exactly where the group was and myself and Baba arrived there at the same time as Manchild and ‘the presents’.

 

We found the float with a big birthday cake as described in the text but behind it was about 30 kids, each holding neatly wrapped gift boxes, not wearing them. Oh dear!

 

Princess Firstborn’s face fell in horror as she realised that she and her brother stood out like two sore thumbs (or two big boxes in this case).

 

 

The lady from the art studio thought they looked fantastic and invited them to walk at the front of the group, but Princess Firstborn, who is six, was so mortified that she wanted to go straight home. We managed to talk her into marching without the ‘costume’ and her gaily wrapped box took pride of place on the float beside the birthday cake.

 

The Bruiser, at four, was oblivious to all the fuss and quite happy to march in his box; in fact it kept him cosy during the long wait for the parade to start.

 

Manchild just shook his head in despair. Reading back over the text slowly and carefully, it did say quite clearly to: “get yerselves dressed up as if going to a party with a fun hat and an empty box wrapped in birthday paper with a little card taped on the front with a greeting. We will sing happy birthday at the viewing stand with the cake and put the pretend presents on the stand.”

 

All I read was “empty box,” “wrapping paper” and “party hats”.

 

Anyway, in the heel of the hunt, the Bruiser and his box were a great hit and the lady from the art studio has decided to get all the kids to dress up as birthday presents next year. I’ll be reading her texts very carefully from now on though.