1.  Pushing Boundaries

2.  Pushing In

3.  Pushy Mother

A Very Grim Weather Forecast.  Wet. Really, Really, Wet. But clearing up Later On.  We decided our planned Bird Park trip could go ahead, but we would need to leave early. The Man helped us get out.  0930, in our macs just to go from the house to the car, double parked outside.  The house phone rang. The Wednesday Mum.  She forgot. We’re picking up another family and splitting them between us.  OK. We drove round and round looking for the right road.  And found a Post Lady to help. We found the right house.  Wednesday Mum gave us Best Friend to take, so she could take the Mother and two daughters in the other family.  Off we went.   Pouring with rain. The road we needed closed with miles and miles of diversions. And Son 1 aged 4y 10m and Best Friend giggling away as they yelled “Poo Poo Pants!”  and “Wee Wee Head!”  at each other. Son 2 aged 22m sat in his seat yelling “Bart!” (= fart) and laughing his head off.  I will remember not to be disappointed if this is as good as conversation in our 75% male household gets from now on. 

The Bird Park. Soft Play, on a hideously wet day in the summer holidays.  Every table full.  Wet macs, jackets and kagoules over the back of every chair.  Son 1 and Best Friend ran off, I plopped Son 2 in the baby area and found a table. I put our macs and bags on it, went to play with Son 1 and still had to fend off an older woman who snuck on the one seat I hadn’t baggsed.   The others took a while coming.  Son 1 and I had a good play. He stood on top of the jets, all his fine, long, blond hair blown vertically upwards. With his tee shirt full of air and a great delighted smile on his face.  We played with the balls, we climbed, we went down slides.  Son 1 was a pain. He spent the morning playing  a Fierce Game.  Growling and roaring at everyone. Eventually he fell out with Best Friend.  He roared, Best Friend lashed out. He cried.  So all three of us went to play on the Big Uns equipment together.  

And then we all went outside.  In our macs, the rain drumming down, no-one else out. Son 1 dropped his Knobbly Bobbly ice lolly.  I gave him 85p and told him to go back in and buy another one. He managed.  Amazing what motivation can do.  We saw owls, and otters. Son 2 just said “Fish.”  “Fish.” “Fish,” as we wound our way down to the farm area. He studied the fish - great fat koi - for as long as we’d let him.  We looked at the rabbits and the guinea pigs. Outside we fed rabbits and sheep with goat food. Son 1 was letting big sheep lap the pellets off his hands; Son 2 was still just a bit scared. There was a Daddy, Mummy and Baby donkey. Son 1 and I wondered if The Man would let us have a baby donkey.  Son 2 hung on the wire sides of the hen houses.  At penguin feeding time the other Wednesday MOther took her two boys back in. Not us. Son 1 sat on the side of the penguin pool trying to get picked to feed them. Son 2 cried with tiredness and pressed his face in to mine.  When it came to choosing the children, Son 1 didn’t get a look in. “Just get down,” I said, giving him a nudge over. Inside the penguin pen, he turned to me. “Did they say it’s all right?”  ”Yes it’s all right,” I said. “Did they say so?”  How well that child knows me. The keeper passed him and told him to come along, olonking a bucket of fish down beside him.  Son 1 and his new friends hurled them into the pool.   Next to Son 2 and me, two children behind the wall stood with their hands up.  We went round the pool to watch Son 1.  “Pin Gin” said Son 2.