It's been a while since we went to a wedding.
Going with your children is a new experience for me. Can't say I was prepared for it. Previous weddings, solo or with partner, compare as a training experience in the same way that being a member of the Cub Scouts prepares you for going over the top at the Somme.
It was lovely being in Scotland. Glasgow, specifically, a city with the same architecture as Edinburgh but a better colour scheme, toffee and sand shades instead of grey and black. Lovely staying with Aunty M in her huge house, along with the rest of my family. And great to go to my cousin R's wedding. Even nicer if I'd had a chance to socialise with any of them.
About ten minutes into the service, when the nicely dressed friends of the bride behind us were having hysterics, I realised that the entire day was going to be like this. C had both hands on my face and was using my sideburns to twist my head off, shouting "tickly beard!" as she did it. It probably made a nice counterpoint to whatever was going on round the altar at the time, I couldn't say. Some form of ceremony, I felt sure.
Several frazzled hours later, out the back of the function hall, I wrestled C back towards the champagne. There was an expansive park outside, complete with playpark, and although she'd just shat her nappy, she wasn't keen on heading back into the heat and noise of the reception. Nor was I, it had rained outside a while ago, and the air inside was pretty jungly. I didn't know where the pram with the changing bag was, so I asked V, who had been chasing F away from the stainable parts of many expensive frocks.
"Where is the nappy bag?" I asked, at the same time as she asked "Where's C's hairclip?" We both sounded as irritable and fraught as each other, even though I was clearly asking a far more urgent question. Missing tartan clips, even if homemade and nice looking, do not trump stinking arsecloths in my overall flow diagram of parenting proceedures.
As F and I retraced my steps through the park shortly afterwards, combing the sodden grass for the missing adornment, I couldn't quite work out if I'd drawn the short straw or not. V took C to deal with whatever vileness was within her drawers, I was squelching through the dog poop and long grass whilst trying to obey F's requests to sound more like Jay Baruchel (she's into How to Train Your Dragon at the moment, he's the actor who does Hiccup).
It all worked out in the end. F and C danced triumphantly on the main stage of the dining hall throughout dinner. Some of which we even ate! I got to talk to members of my family, mostly my mum after she'd found the hairclip. C didn't get to taste champagne, try though she might. F didn't fall off the stage. Then we all played on the grassy banks outside in the cool evening air. Or C and her cousin H did, anyway, I got to play crashmat as they slammed into me over and over again, careening down the slope into my arms.
F's abiding memory is the ice cream cone she got in lieu of pudding (we missed service as C refused to come off the lawn). Mine is getting into our early taxi home and getting straight back out because C had soiled herself and her nice white* dress, and we didn't want to pay extra to dry clean the taxi. V's is probably changing her on the bank immediately afterwards whilst being told off for not taking part in the ongoing family photos nearby. Chatting to the taxi driver on the way home was the longest conversation with an adult I'd had all day.
Not sure what C's is, she's very vocal these days but rather hard to follow still. A big happy blur, I expect, rather like the rest of us, only possibly with rather more pooping herself.
*also green and red in scattered stripes, smears and patches. Why would you give a toddler in a posh frock ketchup, then let them run about on a grassy slope? What kind of parent are you?
