I was inspired by the weather forecast of cold and rain today to plan a trip to the shops to buy gumboots for the small boys. Turns out the weather service lied and it was warm and sunny all day, but we shopped and bought the gumboots anyway.

Jericho got Ben 10 boots,although they’re the next size up from what he currently wears (his pirate boots are still good but I expect his feet will grow during winter and it can be hard to get boots later in the season) and he was devastated that they wouldn’t stay on his feet when he put them on. Soren got bright green boots that have a cat under a rain cloud on one boot and a dog under a rain cloud on the other boot and ‘raining cats and dogs!’ printed around the bottom. They are adorable.

Not the smoothest shopping trip ever. We were looking at boots in Kmart when Soren managed to fall and hit his face on a display, sending his teeth through the inside of his bottom lip. That gap between the indrawn breath and the outgoing scream, and the way that the lengthier the gap the worse the injury? Yeah, that was really long. In fact, Soren stood there for half a minute with tears pouring out of his eyes, his face going purple, his mouth open and whole body shaking before he managed to start screaming. I just sat right down on the side of the walkway in the store and held him on my lap with a bib up to his face to catch all the blood until he stopped sobbing, which was a pretty long time in the end. Interestingly, every single staff member I saw pretended not to see us there, but every single store customer that passed by (all mothers or grandmothers with little ones) either smiled sympathetically or asked if there was anything they could do to help. It’s lovely how kind other mothers can be.

Poor sweetheart also managed to mash his fingers in a retractable gate at the checkout and trip over in his new gumboots- I was glad to get out of there before he hurt himself some other way.

I wish he’d still sit safely in the pram instead of wanting to walk though! I had his cuddly bear leash on him so I could grab him in an emergency which he wasn’t all that happy about. We had to wait for a while in the car while he screamed and carried on before he’d let me put it on actually. And then while we were walking through Target he suddenly seemed to remember that it was on and he didn’t want it, because he started pulling at it and then jumping up down screaming and flailing his fists like Rumpelstiltskin in a rage. He’s so round and sturdy and chubby, watching him jump up and down with his little fists pounding the hair and his hair flopping up and down was really endearingly hilarious. Even the other shoppers that were nearby were laughing, and it didn’t last long.