Nostrils

Wherever possible, I try to avoid the challenging experience of supermarket shopping with both the Small Girl and the Very Small Boy at the same time. However, one of the unfortunate consequences of the Small Girl moving to a Montessori programme is that Playschool is now governed by a school timetable. To my horror, I discovered that I am expected to entertain her for whole weeks on end during Playschool holidays, as well as trying to get things like shopping and cooking done with the "help" of two Small People.

We started gently this week with October half term, Monday being a bank holiday and therefore leaving me with only four days of entertaining to do. So, in-between the art assignments, stimulating outings, baking projects and play-dates I had scheduled in advance for this frankly daunting few days, I tried to make my own mundane chores as exciting as possible for the Small Girl, for whom even the most trivial task can become exciting if given the right imaginative stimulus. We made a den under the bedcovers whilst changing the sheets, we pretended the vacuum was a monster, chasing the Small Girl around the room while I cleaned, we dusted together and then gave ourselves stickers for Good Cleaning.

By Friday, having put it off all week and sick of spooning the Very Small Boy’s formula powder into my coffee in place of milk, I decided we really ought to go to the supermarket. With no imaginative ideas left to keep the Small Girl amused, I fell back on the last resort of the exhausted mother – chocolate. So, with the Very Small Boy sitting in the supermarket trolley eating a breadstick and the Small Girl running along beside me with a Kinder Egg, we set out for the Dairy aisle.

By the time we got to Beer & Wine, the Very Small Boy had finished his snack and was leaning precariously over the side of the trolley, pointing to the ground and screeching to get down. Whilst singing him soothing songs, pushing the trolley and trying to remember all the items from the shopping list I had, as usual, left at home, I had somehow managed to assemble a miniature woolly mammoth, complete with detachable tusks, from inside the Small Girls’s chocolate egg.

“But what are these called?” The Small Girl was shouting, running along behind me as I grabbed a bottle of wine and hurried towards the till.
“Tusks” I replied, feeling flustered and unloading the shopping, “they’re the mammoth’s tusks”.
“No they’re not tusks, they’re nostrils”, she said, waving them about angrily, her voice rising in agitation.
“OK, you can call them nostrils if you like”. Trying to make myself heard over the Very Small Boy’s screeches, I arranged my facial features into something I thought might resemble "calm and reasonable mother".
“But where are they?” she cried, bending over to scan the floor and sounding really upset now.
“What? Where are what?” I asked in desperation, trying as quickly as possible to calm the Very Small Boy and pack up the shopping so we could leave.
“The nostrils! I dropped them…where are the nostrils?" she continued, "where are the mammoth nostrils? Mummy, where are my MAMMOTH NOSTRILS?”

It was one of those moments when the world seems to stand still. And, in the silence that followed, all eyes were on me (even the Very Small Boy had stopped screeching and was regarding me inquisitively). I looked at the check-out girl.
“I need a glass of wine”, I sighed through clenched teeth.

She smiled and nodded sympathetically. “Or two” she said, and handed me my bottle of Merlot.