On Friday it was Nairn’s 4th birthday. Somehow he managed to effectively get five days of celebrations and gifts thanks to parties and various members of our family not being able to turn up on his actual birthday which was actually fantastic. It’s possibly the least stressed we’ve been during one of our kids birthdays because of it I think. Anyway one of the presents that he received from us/the kids was a Woody from Toy Story costume which he didn’t like. If there is one thing I can say about the boy it’s that he’s honest. Even if a little ruthless with it. Anyway seeing as all the kid’s love Toy Story Erica decided that this costume was the best thing ever and this morning I came downstairs after looking out her clothes to wear to nursery to find her sitting watching TV wearing this costume.

“I got dressed Daddy.”

I couldn’t not let her wear it hat and all. I just didn’t have the heart.

So it came to pick up time and for once Vonnie wasn’t able to pick them up in the car as she’d been out in the city all afternoon and couldn’t make it back in time. This meant I had to walk the two miles there and the two miles back pushing a pram with my hurt foot as well as carrying Greer in a sling. It sounds worse than it is but it does take time. It’s usually a 60 minute round trip but with the extra child and bags on top of my foot it was closer to 120 minutes before we got home. Around half way home Findlay pointed out that Erica had fell asleep on the bottom seat of the P&T buggy and she was still holding the the cowboy hat in her hands. The next time I checked on her was whilst in the queue to buy pizza for dinner when I realised the hat was gone. Nairn had only had it five days and already it had been lost.

I was furious. How could I have been so stupid. I blamed Findlay for not seeing it fall from the pram. I blamed Greer for being young enough that I could carry her in the sling which completely obstructs the view of the lower pram seat and my feet. I blamed Nairn because he wouldn’t carry the hat for me to keep it safe and most of all I blamed myself for being so stupid as to miss a large brown cowboy hat falling from the pram no matter how hard it would have been to see it. I’d decided that as soon as Vonnie was home she could deal with feeding the children whilst I’d run back to the nursery and retrace our footsteps in the futile hope that no one had picked it up for themselves. I was close to tears with anger at this point and thankfully Vonnie had beaten us home and before we even made it in the front door she had me throwing the kids in the car so that we could quickly get back to nursery.

I jumped out at the entrance to the technology park where the kids nursery is and started jogging along our usual route after checking with the guardhouse. I had it in my head that between the nursery and a path just by the Territorial Army HQ was where it must have happened as I was sure I hadn’t seen the hat any further along our route so it cut down the possible number of spots where it might be. As I went along the route I started to get frantic. Okay so when we’d last been there it was daylight and an hour later it was definitely night time so I was expecting to possibly miss it as in places it was really dark but as I got closer to the TA HQ it became very apparent that the hat wasn’t to be found.

Just as I was about to turn off the path head to where I was meeting Vonnie with the car I had a thought. I’d long travelled past the place where I was last sure she didn’t have the hat but as there was only another 20 yards round a corner before I reached the end of the path I was on anyway I carried on. And there it was. Someone had came along and found it. Not only had the person not taken it for themselves they picked it up and placed it on a wall under a streetlamp so that I’d be able to see it without staring into the shadows that surrounded the place. The relief I felt was unreal. This is why I know I’m tired.

The level of stress and worry that I felt from this was up there with our experiences when Erica wasn’t well as a baby and we didn’t know what was wrong with her. The sudden joy of finding the hat felt exactly the same as the day we found out that Erica was piling on the weight and was no longer going to be a ‘failure to thrive’ baby. I shouldn’t be having these extreme emotions over a lost rubber cowboy hat.

Still… At the end of the day we got the hat back and there will be no tears in the morning. That’s the aim for every day. No tears from anyone in the morning.

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

It seems with the writers strike over and done with the studios are getting back into the swing of things. The Star Trek prequel thats been in production has been pushed back 6 months and despite the industry saying its so they will make more money a lot of people are suggesting that its to allow the director to rewrite some sections and give them time to get some SFX shots done that might not have been finished by the original release date.

As for the TV shows it looks like theres some winners and some losers. Obviously all these might change but the stand out losers in my eyes are Heroes, Lost and Jericho. Everyone knew what was happening with lost as they were very public about it but it’s only been in the last week that it w’ve really known that Lost will be cut short and what it will mean tot he story line. Jericho on the other hand looks like its actually going to finish up thanks to the strike. With only a few more episodes to be aired half of the story arc is going to be missing and most likely won’t be piocked up for a 3rd season.

FOX

* House – Done until next fall
* Prison Break – 1 more episode then done until the fall

* 24 – Done until January 2009
* Bones – Returns April 28th with 4 new unaired episodes then done until the fall
* Til Death – Should return this season with a handful of new episodes.
* Back to You – Should return this season with a handful of new episodes.
* KVille Done.
* Sarah Connor Chronicles – 4 unaired episodes. Highly unlikely to be picked up.

ABC

* Lost – 8 episodes complete, 2 aired. 5 more to be produced for a total of 13 this season.
* Grey