Lots can happen in 30 minutes

It's tough finding the time to train for a half marathon with 4 young kids. Dh knows that the Sunday morning 8am slot is my time to run and train but other than that I have to fit training in around A&E's sleeping patterns, my babysitter, dh and the short winter days which don't allow a lot of time for running in the daylight on the streets. Driving to the gym and back takes up 20 precious minutes when I could be running so all in all my training isn't going so brilliantly.

And so it was the other day when I decided I would trial an early morning run from home. Eldest daughter had stayed overnight at a friends house and A&E were already up and drinking their milk and hitting dh on the head with their bottles. Dh wasn't thrilled about the idea as he claimed he wasn't awake but I had brought him his necessary morning cup of tea and so all he had to do was to get boy in the middle up and dressed and watch A&E.

As I opened the front door to the cold, damp, foggy winter morning, I caught a glimpse of A&E peering down the stairs waving at me. However, this was my time and I was determined to stretch well and run a couple of miles before coming home by which time I assumed breakfast would be in full swing.

I ran my 2 miles and it took about 25 minutes. As I opened the front door A&E came running out of the kitchen towards me. They are just beginning to speak so I asked them "Where's Daddy?" The answer that came back - "Bed bed bed". Assuming they were wrong and perhaps asking for bread I hollered up the stairs "You're not still in bed are you?" With that shout dh clearly shot out of bed and in a panic ran down the stairs.

"Do you want to go into the kitchen first or shall I?" was all I could manage to say.

I think we went in together and surveyed the scene. There were miniature smarties covering the entire floor surface of the kitchen. My laptop was sprinkled with a fine covering of salt and the girls had clearly been in the process of heading towards the breakfast cereal.

Clearly A&E had enjoyed a fabulous 30 minutes on their own in the kitchen. I am just thankful they hadn't manage to harm themselves in any way. I was initally blamed because I shouldn't have gone as dh said he needed more sleep. Dh was blamed for being completely irresponsible. Then we looked at the clock and realised there was no point in blaming each other. With only 20 minutes to go before the school run I cleaned the kitchen and dh finally got boy in the middle out of bed.

Needless to say I haven't made it on another early morning run since.