My spectacular memory fails

Last weekend my memory failed me. I was supposed to have arranged something for my kids, but it completely slipped my mind leading to red faces all around, none redder than mine.

I’m still recovering from that incident. I’m at a point where the thought of it randomly pops into my head and I instantly cringe, no matter where I am or who I am with.

I’m hoping it will pass soon, although I don’t have much hope. I still feel the same way about some things I did when I was 16 years of age.

The incident at the weekend got me thinking about some of my best memory fails. I know some mums and dads seem to stroll through life with a pack of baby wipes with them at all times, a mobile phone that is mysteriously and perpetually 100% charged and two weeks’ worth of home-cooked frozen meals in the freezer that simply need to be defrosted.

This, I’m afraid, is not my family. It definitely doesn’t describe me.

I give you here, five of my best memory fails.

Wrong number of birthday party treats

Helen was having a birthday party. She specifically wanted her guests to build teddy bears. Once I’d totted up the number of RSVPs, we were at nine children.

The bears were quite expensive so I ordered the precise number, figuring one or two would drop out on the day. Oh how wrong was I. Somehow we ended up with 10 kids turning up.

Yes people, I somehow forget about one of the kids. I’ve no idea how I did this, but it was not my finest hour.

I had no choice but to leave Mrs Adams in charge while I jumped into the car and zoomed off to the local craft shop in the hope of getting a bear building kit. Needless to say, it was too specific an item and they didn’t sell it so one poor child had to make do with an arts and crafts set and make their own item.

I don’t mind telling you I felt dreadful about that. It’s probably my most spectacular memory fail of all.

Don’t put your daughter on the stage Mrs Worthington

Sticking with the theme of bears, and going back a few years, Helen was appearing in her nursery’s annual Christmas show. We’d received a letter informing us what costume she needed but Mrs Adams and I had lost it.

We couldn’t remember what she was meant to be dresses as and so I asked the nursery manager. She informed me that Helen was meant to be dressed as Father Christmas and so I hurriedly rushed out and bought her a costume (that’s a story in it’s own right that you can read about here).

The day arrived and Mrs Adams and I were in the audience. Out came Helen’s group and they were all dressed like bears, apart from Helen who was in her Santa Claus outfit.

Luckily she was still a bit too young to be bothered by such things, but I felt bad for her nonetheless. While I have taken it on the chin and accepted responsibility for this grubby little episode, in my heart I feel like it was a collective failure. If I think that way, it makes me feel slightly better. More to the point, what have bears got to do with Christmas?

Forgetting to defrost the evening meal

This is something I am guilty of at least, oh, once a week. I have the evening meal planned. I know I am either going to make something fresh or defrost a certain dish.

Be it a ready-prepared meal or the key ingredients, all I have to do is remove it from the freezer in the morning. All too often it gets to two o’clock in the afternoon, I realise my mistake and end up going and buying the ingredients while on the school run.

Please, someone tell me they also do this? I can’t be the only person guilty who fails to remember their family needs to eat.

No bread or milk for breakfast

I’m pleased so say this is something that happens only rarely these days. I think it must be a throw-back to the days when I didn’t have a family and having no bread and milk in the house was an excuse to get breakfast from a cafe on the way into work.

I used to be dreadful at remembering when we were low on bread and milk and the results were not pleasant. It was kind-of my party-piece to be honest.

I’d get up in the morning, I’d get the kids up get downstairs, fill their cereal bowls, fling open the fridge door and be mildly irritated at myself when I the discovered there was no milk. I’d then check the bread bin and finding it empty, go into full-scale panic mode.

When I first gave up work to become a stay at home dad, I was guilty of doing this all the time. I think both Mrs Adams and I were simply used to Helen (as we only had the one child at the time) having breakfast at nursery so it didn’t really matter if we didn’t have any in the house.

Yes, okay, so I still occasionally wake up to find ourselves with no bread or no milk. Rarely, very rarely indeed, do we get the double whammy these days.

Forgetting where I parked the car

Thankfully this has only happened a small number of times. That said, it is something I have, somehow, done twice in the past week.

The first occasion was at the end of the day when I was on the school run. Having left the playground, we marched off to where I would normally park the car.

I love the heat and can yomp off at great speed in the sunshine. Needless to say, my offspring don’t feel the same way and they were struggling, especially four year old Izzy who was dragging her feet and not enjoying the mid-afternoon heat one bit.

You can imagine what reaction I got where we arrived at the spot where I’d usually park, only to inform the kids the car was parked pretty much right outside the school gates. Back we went, me at the front like Mother Goose with two very grumpy children in tow and of course, having got to the car late, we then got stuck in all the school run traffic. Well done John, well done.

The other occasion occurred after I’d been out for the night. My intention had been to walk to the train station and travel into London after Mrs Adams got home.

Mrs Adams was late so I drove to the train station, caught the train, went out, caught the train back again and walked the final part of the journey. On arrival, I found the driveway was empty. This gave me a bit of a fright as I knew Mrs Adams and the kids were at home so where was the car? I’d was also concerned as I’d need it for the school run in the morning and for a few brief seconds I thought it had been stolen.

I then remembered what I’d done so I had to walk back to the car, retrieve it and drive it home. I got to bed late that night.

What about you?

Have you done anything like this? Maybe you’ve done better and left a child somewhere by accident thinking your other half had them? Maybe you’ve parked a car somewhere, forgotten all about it and reported it stolen (never done it myself, but I knew someone who once did this). Go on, leave a comment below. After all, none of us is perfect.