baby in pink hat

My li'l Tasmanian princess

By The Bloke in The Shed

IT’S NOT every day you get a chance to snub royalty. Yep, a letter arrived inviting me and Princess Kel to dinner with our Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Princess Mary and Prince Frederik of Denmark.

While it was an interesting offer, it did not take me long to respond in the negative – I’m enjoying spending some well-earned holidays with my own little royal family, the three princesses. There was also the little matter of forking out for the airfares to Canberra.

Now I assumed Princess Kel would be delighted when I told her I’d turned down the chance of a lifetime to spend as much time of my first holidays in seven months with her and the kids as possible. How wrong could I be?

“YOU DID WHAT?’’ she exclaimed.

“Get on the ‘net and check out how much the fares would be,’’ she followed.

“But what would we do with the kids?,” I countered.

“We’ll think of something.’’

Luckily, given the dinner was only a little over a week away, the airfares were the equivalent of the USA’s GDP and it made my original decision the correct one. Phew.

It soon became clear of Kel’s motive. “That would have made an awesome blog post,’’ she sighed.

Work, life and family commitments (not in that order) have made me a little scarce from www.threelilprincesses.com in recent months (is that the sound of cheering I hear?). A lot has happened in that time as I’ve worked hard to establish myself in a new position at work, a busy family and community life. Our little bubba Holly turned one and is growing at the rate of knots. Princess Ella has turned four and is far wiser than her years.

After a bath-time, um, disagreement between Kel and I tonight, Ella sided with her mum and said to me this:

“Daddy?,’’ she said.

“Yes, darlin’,’’ I replied.

“Sometimes I go with mummy’s team and then sometimes I’m on your team,’’ she said.

“Tonight I’m on mummy’s team and I’ll be on your team tomorrow I will. Will that be good?’’

“Yes darling’,’’ I replied unable to disguise my smile.

I guess after four years I should be happy she wants to be on my team … sometimes. I’m quite happy with my own little royal family thankyou very much.

Would you have ditched Princess Mary for your children?

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10 Responses to The Shed: The reason I ditched a date with Princess Mary

  1. Haha, how sweet that she likes to divide her time in between teams 🙂 Ditched the kids for Princess Mary, yes. Bradd Pitt? Maybe not so much 😉

  2. You are a brave brave man…. I would have been very sad to have missed out on meeting Princess Mary. But the conversation with your daughter puts it all back into perspective really. She has it all sorted already – keeping both parents onside is always a good plan.

    • Too smart for her own good Sara. Yesterday she told me “I’m on mum’s team today, but Baby Holly can be on your team”. Sort of like the little girl in the 7-11 I saw yesterday with her big sister who said “You can carry the bag if you like and I’ll carry the slurpie”. Big sister’s reply: “Yeah, don’t reckon”.

  3. Kelly says:

    Loved reading this. I’m with Kell. I would have said WHAT!!? But then, I turned down an interview with Allan Border and husband said, “What?!” to me. Ha! I went back and said I would do it for him.

    You princess is a gorgeous little Diplomat. Love it!

  4. Lisa Wood says:

    You are a very brave Man to tell you wife that you turned down the invitation…even if there plane flights cost a BOMB..imagine how much fun you all could have had in Canberra! Hey maybe you could have asked to have the flights included with the invitations?
    Your little princess is so very smart…letting you know that she was on Mums team for that decision, but tomorrow is a different story – how did kids ever get so smart?
    Cheers
    Lisa
    PS – would have loved to read the story about your visit, and seen the photos – so I have to say that I am with Ella on this one….I am on the Mums team this time 🙂

  5. Tram Tran says:

    I haven’t had kids yet, but that’s uber cute;)

  6. Tat says:

    Sorry, Kel, but I’m on the Bloke’s team (just) for this one. Spending time with some royalties you don’t even know that well for a blog post? That’s what I call overcommitment and I’m sure your blog readers wouldn’t expect that of you 😉

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