Nutso

One of Pip’s friends has a very ‘stylish’ mum.  These are Pip’s own words and her observation is very true.

Stylish mum is not only fashionable, she is lovely.  She runs a small gardening club at school which her daughter invited Pip to participate in from the middle of 2010.  Since then, Pip’s friend has come over to our house and they have become closer due to the work they’ve done together in their special veggie patch.

All good stuff, especially the little gardening gift all club members got as they gear up for the Christmas holidays — two garden trowels and a packet of sunflower seeds.

It’s a wonderful group to belong to, so I asked Pip if she’d like to take something for gardening mum as a ‘thank you’ for her leadership and involvement.  Pip thought that would be great.  Luckily, I had a packet or two of Haig’s chocolate floating round for emergency presents (or if my blood sugar became low during the pre Christmas time) and how fitting such a stylish chocolate would be for the fabulous gardening mum.

It’s true.  I was thinking that shallowly.  Haig’s equals class.  I wanted to present gardening mum with something more upmarket than a scratchie.  Or, a scrunchie.

Okay?  All well and good?  The thought is the most important, so I wrapped the delish fruit and nut chocies in Christmas paper and sent them along with Pip.

It was only this afternoon when I picked Pip and Pop up from school that a flash of insight hit me square in the forehead like a Harry Potter lightening streak.  For some reason, I was thinking of the girls giving their gifts, the pleasure I hoped they were getting from that when I remembered:  oh what!?  Pip’s friend, the daughter of our gardening club mum, is anaphylactic!!!  And yes, you guess it, her allergy is to nuts!  And yep, I had ensured that the gift that went home to her mother contained every single nut in the frigging universe and beyond!

It was too late.  Pip had given the gift.  When I stated, out loud, what my brain had just reminded me of, Pip said ‘oh, mum!  What?  Really?’  as though, perhaps, I had meant to give a stylish present that could end up sending her friend into hospital.

Naturally, gardening mum won’t be opening the Haig’s and sharing them with her girl, but the very worse thing about this Gift Giving from Dumbo Land scenario is that gardening mum has trusted me with her daughter (three times, when she’s been at our house to play with the girls) and left the EpiPen with me to administer due to my first aid training!

Duh.  It’s not like ‘oh, I didn’t KNOW that your daughter, Pip Jones’s friend, was anaphylactic.  HER EPIPEN HAS ONLY VISITED THREE SEPARATE TIMES.  Sorry about the fruit and nut mix.  Maybe you can eat the sultanas?’

What. A. Fuel!

Suffice to say that I will be approaching gardening mum tomorrow with a red face and sheepish eyes, hoping that she will still have a baaaa of me.  She’ll laugh, she’s that kind of person which is fortunate.  If I never mention it, I wonder if she would bring it up?  I doubt it, she’s just that Haig’s classy, but perhaps now she’s realized I’m NOT the fruit part of the  fruit and nut combination