Don’t cry over spilt milk….unless its hot and burning your toddler!

We had one of those weekends this week which — simply put — did not go as planned!

With Louis turning five on Monday, we had a weekend of fun organised; a trip to The Natural History Museum on Saturday (Louis loves dinosaurs and always watches Andy’s Dinosaur Adventures which is filmed there), a birthday tea party with some family and friends on Sunday and then a trip to Zizzi after school on his birthday with his school mate on Monday.

But on Friday, whilst I was on a business coaching mastermind day at Champneys Spa (I know, it’s a hard life right!) I got a call from Louis’ school telling me he had been sick and that he needed to be picked up. I’m not gonna lie, my initial reaction was ‘of all the bloody days’ but then I quickly realised that I wasn’t there to deal with the problem anyway! Ha ha. So I called James who went around to the school to pick him up. He was sick a few more times that afternoon and spent most of the day just lying on the sofa watching films.

When I went to check on Louis on Saturday morning, sorry — scrape that — I think I woke up in his bed after he cried out after having a nightmare in the night, I could tell he wasn’t 100%. He had no idea where we were taking him for his surprise London day out, but I just knew he wouldn’t be able to enjoy it feeling the way he was. He seemed less energetic than normal, his throat was hurting from the day before and I knew he needed a day to relax and chill. Luckily the sickness had not returned since the day before.

Louis was great about it. He begged me to reveal the surprise and so I did, telling him I had moved it to the weekend coming. He was excited but was happy to stay at home.

A few hours later we thought it would be nice to go for a family walk, stretch our legs and get some fresh air. Then James said the words that are like music to my ears, the words that mean you don’t have to scan the shitty looking fridge contents and come up with something half edible “shall we go to the cafe?”. Yes, we all thought that would be a nice idea.

So we got ready and headed out the door for what was supposed to be a relaxed lunch.

But it soon turned into the most dramatic fried breakfast I have ever eaten.

We found a nice round table by the window, got settled and ordered our food. The waitress brought over our hot tea and coffee which we instantly kept out of George’s reach. Suddenly there was a commotion outside, a car had pulled over and when opening the passenger door, hitting a passing cyclist. It was hard to know who’s fault it was, but we were watching the scene play out — especially as it looked like the situation was about the heat up! The driver was more concerned about the bang to her car door beyond the potentially injured cyclist.

Unbeknown to me, James had started enjoying his coffee and within a split second of taking his eye off the cup to look at the argument going on outside, George grabbed the cup and screamed as the hot liquid went all over him.

The panic went from 0 to 1000 — James reached for a cup of cold water and my Mother’s instincts kicked in. I stripped him off as quickly as possible to get the clothes covered in the hot coffee away from his skin. I shouted to James to get a towel and ice and the staff, who were incredible, were there in nanoseconds. We put an ice pack on the area where the coffee had reached his skin, it was just under his collarbone.

A man came over to our table, he was a paramedic and had witnessed the coffee incident whilst queuing to order his food. He was so incredible and explained in the most calm way that:

* We needed to keep the ice pack on the area to cool it down

* If George didn’t calm down shortly after the incident we would have to take him to A&E

* If the affected area was larger than the size of his hand we would need to take him to A&E

* If any coffee had ended up on his hands or face, we would need to take him to A&E

It was so reassuring as this man, or in this moment our knight in shining armour, knew exactly what we needed to do.

He asked us if we wanted him to check George over, to which we nodded frantically ‘yes please!’. This is one of those occasions when it’s OK for a stranger to be in your child’s personal space… you will have to check out an episode of my soon-to-be launched upcoming podcast entitled ”Stranger Danger” when it’s released to understand what I am talking about!

Lucky for us George had calmed down. The man confirmed that he seemed to be doing ok and just to keep an eye on him. We were so grateful to this man and the kindness of others.

What was also ironic is that one of the waitresses came over and explained she was a first aider. She said if it blistered we would need to go to the hospital and then asked if we wanted cling film put on him as apparently this can minimise the burn, as it stops the oxygen getting to it (don’t quote me on this though, I am definitely NO medical expert!) but by this stage he had calmed down and was more tired and hungry than anything else. The ironic because this lovely first aider was the same person who got out of the car and hit the cyclist with her door. Yes, it was this waitress we had been watching when the coffee chaos happened.

The servers bought out the food and asked if we wanted it to go, but we decided to eat it thinking that George would be happy with some chippies to chew on. But now he was mega tired and grumpy so we had lunch (don’t judge me!) by playing “pass the aggy baby”. James ate his whilst I hugged George and then we swapped over. I shoved the food in my mouth so fast I don’t even think I registered the taste. By the time the kids were back in their coats and George strapped in the pram, I was done. But it was definitely time to give the other cafe-goers some peace!

But we were extremely lucky because the accident could have been soooooooo much worse and, in normal circumstances, if George hadn’t already been tired, I think he would have just got on with eating his food.

I want to give a massive shout out to the paramedic that helped us! James went and said another thank you to him as we left and all his mates were teasing him about “being a hero again”. But, for us, he was. In those moments of panic, having the reassurance that you have handled a situation correctly, especially when it is in relation to an accident, is priceless.

Back at home, we got George off to sleep and Louis had a chilled afternoon catching up on sleep. This is so rare and I savoured the moment of extra cuddles. I even got to watch a chick flick in the middle of the day, so even better!

What I took from the dreaded incident:

1. Don’t leave hot coffee near your child!

2. That random act of kindness from a stranger makes you remember the world is an amazing place.

3. Mothers instincts are always simmering under the surface, ready to kick in at a moments notice.

4. Accidents happen! It makes us feel like the worst parent in the world, when our little ones get hurt — and we feel we could have prevented it — but it’s NEVER our intention, so let’s just give ourselves a break.