1. Hard Luck
2. Soft Play
3. Easy Choices
I so wanted to stay in bed this morning. But Son 2 aged 2y 4m sobbed with furious disappointment when The Man went into get him from his cot. “NO!” he howled. “GO ‘WAY DADDY.” I waited and waited for The Man to bring him up. Son 1 aged 5y 3m, already in the Big Bed, snuggled down. “He sounds very cross.” In the end I went and got him. We were going to the Tourist Attraction 30 miles away for a School party. The Man wrapped the present. Son 1 wrote the card. Note. There was a Present. There was a Card. There was Wrapping Paper. There was Sellotape. Stands on the podium blinking proudly as they raise the flag and play God Save The Queen.
The Tourist Attraction has a Soft Play area. Spotting his friends, Son 1 yanked off his shoes and coat and sped off. Son 2 and I took the Big Pram upstairs. And then. We started in the Toddler Area, where Son 2 climbed up and ran across and stepped over and slid down and squeezed through. We played in the Ball Pool. We used the big cushion bricks to build a little house round a giggling Son 2. He kicked it down, hooting with laughter, the bricks covering him so only his little feet stuck out. A two-year-old Haitian face with huge eyes flashed before me. We went up the stairs to the Big Slide, gathering en route one of Son 1’s class mates. Son 2 said “Ready, Steady, Go!” and we raced to the bottom. She won each time. I got her name wrong. We did many, many laps of the Big ‘Uns area. Son 2 can get to the top of the steep slope ‘n’ a rope. You just climb up and stick your little feet in the net at the side, and then you can more or less get anywhere you want. Especially if you have no fear and Mummy helps you on the tricky bits on the way down. We met a flushed and weary Son 1. “Can we play in the Baby Area now?” Down we went. Several of his friends joined him, piling in on top of him, bashing each other with cushions and throwing balls at heads. We’d come a long way since his first invitation to a party there nearly a year ago. party time I eventually sent Son 1 out for Setting A Bad Example. ”Can I have an ice cream?” “No, but I’ll take you upstairs and we’ll get a drink.”
In the party room, there was squash in jugs. But there were also two tables laid up for lunch. And in the middle of one… a beautifully iced birthday cake, with blue iced cup cakes underneath. Like a magnet, it pulled Son 1 and Son 2 towards it. Son 1 stood as close as he could get, staring, holding the edge of the table. Son 2 was less subtle. “Cake!” he bellowed, like Father Jack hollering for Drink. Another half hour’s play, and I had to pull Son 2 off the ice cream cabinet. Lunch was called when Son 2 and I were on the other side of the building. We were among the last up, Son 1 was already seated, scoffing. i couldn’t get next to Son 2 so he chose his own food. Son 2 has no worries about calories, teeth, nutrition, or What People Think. = A chocolate muffin. A pink wafer biscuit. Two mini doughnuts with chocolate on top. An iced biscuit. I put a jam sandwich on his plate. He took it off and tossed it on the table.
Tags: ball pool, birthday, Father Jack, Haiti, lie-in, party, party lunch, preferring Mummy, school friends, soft play, sweet tooth, toddler area, Tourist Attraction
