Who hasn’t forgotten to pick up their child? Well, I did just that and now my third-born has labelled me the worst parent in the world.
Perhaps I should introduce him to Kevin’s McCallister’s parents from Home Alone, or the Dursley family from Harry Potter who made the poor orphan sleep in a cupboard under the staircase.
The third-born child really does have a different upbringing to the rest of their siblings, don’t they?
My youngest has not let me live down the fact that I forgot about picking him up from a rugby break-up celebration at the school.
My Year 6 boy spent three hours on the rugby field by himself on a Saturday afternoon and, in the end, had to ask the ice-cream truck people to use their phone to ring me to let me know all the other parents and kids had long gone home.
It was getting dark, to be fair, and even the paid workers were packing up to go home.
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I obviously thought the ice-cream truck caller was spam or someone trying to sell me something – so, I ignored it.
Augie then had to ring my sister, who then rang me to tell me the alarming news my son was stranded at school.
I picked him up and he was looking a little dejected, very sunburnt and moderately dehydrated.
But third kids basically raise themselves, don’t they?
I am also a third child and I was a pig in mud every school day as I made my two-minute noodles for afternoon tea and watched Days of Our Lives on TV.
Mum was a single parent and was always working. So, I just got on with it. I was incredibly loved, but I could cook a roast dinner, clean the house and catch a bus anywhere by myself by the time I was 12.
My youngest is allowed to do milestones such as going to the movies with friends – much earlier than his elder brother or sister did.
He is basically raising himself, it seems, some days. He does not have a baby book and I think the dog ate his first curl that I cut off and immediately lost in my blur of sleep deprivation.
My boy will rib me about my faux pas of forgetting him for a long while to come.
But the truth is, I could not love that little guy more. He is my sun and my moon. I just had too many things going on that day for my fried brain to cope.
Sami Muirhead is a radio announcer, blogger and commentator, wife and mum of three.
