1.  The Clash

2.   The Darkness

3.  The Feeling

Son 1 aged 4y 10m has two weeks of holiday left before he starts Reception.  Pang. He cried and clung this morning. “I’ll take more time off next summer,” I said.  Pang.  Wonder Nanny, The Woman I Am Paying To Take My Children To The Beach While I Am At The Office, arrived.  Oh stuff it.   At least they can go to the beach. Son 1spent his first three summers inside in Nursery.    I don’t believe in lyin’  back, sayin’ how bad your luck is…

i did another TK Maxx run at lunchtime, and bought some birthday stocking fillers/random presents for under a fiver. And then went like the clappers in the afternoon so that I could try and get back at a decent time to see the boys.  I didn’t even leave till Wonder Nanny’s finishing time, so I knew I’d miss her, but I was hoping Son 1 and Son 2 would still be up.

Up?  They weren’t even home. The house was strangely still when I went in.  No chatting, no laughing, no shrieking.  No squeals of “Mummmeeee!”  No pitter patter of feet down the stairs.   Just The Man, loafing. “Where are my boys?”  “Wonder Nanny rang. They’re all having their tea on the beach.”  i had a cup of tea. I looked at the paper.  The Man paced up and down. He went up and down the stairs.  “This is like the old days.” Not quite. In the old days I would have come home from The Office and gone straight out for a run.  But it still felt very odd.  Household life suspended, while we waited for two little heartbeats to come back.

1.  Mummy Vanishes

2.  Fishing

3.  Finding Nemo

The Man was still alive this morning.  “I did think you might be worried.  I’ll take my phone up with me next time.”  “Is it a Wonder Nanny day today?” asked Son 1 aged 4y 10m as I was getting ready for The Office.  “Yes,” I said. “And then Mummy will be with you tomorrow.” He let off a high wail.  “You don’t (sob) love your boys (sob.)”  Thanks for that one Son 1, I’ll even up a little when I’m in the nursing home.  Son 2 aged 23m was a little darling. “Neno!  Neno!” I do an abridged version of Son 1’s Disney book. “Tak Ta!”  His lift-the-flap farm book.  I almost got him to sit all the way through The Cat In The Hat last night. The Cat was a winner, so was the fish.  He went walkabout well before Mother Came Home.

I had to drive to The City. The roads were ok, it’s always good to see my colleagues from The City Office, and someone said something very nice to me in a meeting. On the way back I stopped at Waitrose because we’re out of Cheerios and tea. A friend wants Wonder Nanny to take her child as well as our two for one day.  Fine, I said, but I’ll have to ask Wonder Nanny. She’d gone by the time I got back. Son 1 pelted down the stairs to greet me, Son 2 just sat up top laughing. 

Son 2 is great. “How old are you going to be on your birthday, Son 2?” “Doooo.”  We sat and read, and then he had his bath, lying face down, full length in it as he played with two tigers and a donkey. His post-bath game is called “Boo.” It involves him lying down with a towel over him. “Daddy, Daddy, something terrible’s happened!  I can’t find Son 2!”  Daddy comes in - somehow this is always timed just after he’s lain down on the bed - lifts up the towel and there is Son 2, who laughs his head off.  Son 1 also plays. He comes in, points at Son 2 and says “He’s there. Under the towel. He’s always under the towel.  Every time.” Again, thanks for that. I put a toy Nemo we’ve had hanging around for ages into the cot with Son 2 tonight, in the hope it might stop him screaming for me the minute I leave. He still screamed, but not for as long.  Could this possibly be the solution?

1.  A Thousand Cuts

2.  Thanks A Thousand

3.  A Thousand Times

Son 2 aged 22m didn’t wake up screaming till 0615.  This is a Good Thing. Lately it’s been unremitting before 0530.  The Man has tried.  I’ve just left him, his screams not quite drowned out by the klaxon of my guilt. I wonder what’s wrong. Wonder Nanny says he’s the same when he wakes up from his daytime naps. I wouldn’t know. He never sleeps in the daytime when he’s with me. Which all leads me to the Pang Pang Pang conclusion that he needs to see me more. Oh Lord.   At least we have Wonder Nanny so he doesn’t have to go to Nursery.  He stood at the door and cried after she left tonight. Pang Pang Pang.    

Cheer Up, Said George.  (Son 2 and I are doing The Smartest Giant In Town at the moment.)  The Man has taken some time off.  This is cause for the firing of cannons and a public holiday.  I have tried pointing out that even Junior Doctors are barred by law from working more than 48 hours a week but for some reason he thinks he’s exempt from the Working Time Directive.   And the boys’ Elegant Aunt has offered us her timeshare week. Hoorah hoorah.

I tried to get home from work a bit early to see a little more of Son 1 aged 4y 10m and Son 2.  Didn’t work.  When I cuddled Son 2, Son 1 went mad with jealousy, and relentlessly tried to bash him off me or force his way between us. When I cuddled Son 1, Son 2 let out intolerable ear-splitting shrieks and I ended up dumping him in his cot.  I left him there for five minutes, and then went back up. He was standing, in his dungarees, cute as a kitten, in the corner of his cot.   A big smile. “Mummeeeee!” “Are you going to stop shrieking?” “Yesssssssssssssss.”  And he made it till bedtime without a single screech.  And then, after I’d laid Son 1 down in his bed and closed their bedroom door, their day ended as it began. “MUMMMMEEEEEEE! MUMMMMEEEEE!!!!”

1.  Scrappy Doo

2.  Scooby Doo

3.  Scoopy Poo

Yesterday’s marathon gave me an afternoon off, and I took Son 1 aged 4y 10m to see Scooby Doo and the Pirates in The Big City.  I felt desperately guilty about Son 2 aged 22m… when I booked the tickets last October he was 13m old. Couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t do anything.  Now he thinks he’s 4, loves Scooby Doo and can point him out on a poster, loves Pirates (”Arrrr!” and “Hook!”) and would have been devastated if any of us had admitted he was being left behind. Instead we pretended that I was taking Son 1 to school, and Wonder Nanny engineered things so Son 2 was asleep when I swooped in and out to collect him.

Great show and a great time.  Just as I fell in love with Anthony during The Wiggles, there is now Something There That Wasn’t There Before with Shaggy.  He’s happy and kind,  he loves animals and dancing and he adores food. We were in the second row. Son 1 kept hiding under the chairs of the front row when the pirates came out.  He seems so big when we’re with Son 2, but on his own, in a theatre with 2000 people he seemed tiny. “I know who the pirate queen is Mummy, the  lady who likes chocolate in the first bit.” 

“Do you need the loo?” I asked before we left the theatre. “No,” he answered crossly, as he always does. Then, two miles into the 70-mile trip home “I need a poo!”  “Can you wait a bit?” “No! It’s coming!”  We stopped in a supermarket car park.  Lidl and the Co-op. Not a loo between them. We asked in a community centre. No, the loos couldn’t be opened.  It rained.  I fished in my hessian shopping bag.  A printed out email from The Office and a handful of napkins.  I perched Son 1 in a corner by a hedge. “Have a wee and then go on that.”  He obliged.  I picked up the Matter.  And that is how I came to be walking around a shopping centre with a rolled-up email filled with poo in one hand and a four year old’s grasp in the other.  I found a lined bin and got rid of it.  Pre-children, pre-swine flu, I didn’t even know you could get small bottles of antiseptic hand gel. But as it happened, I had one in the car.   I cleaned my hands. “Wash your hands with this,” I handed the bottle to Son 1.  His small voice came from the back. “Oh. Missed.  It’s gone everywhere.”

1.  Blood

2.  Sweat

3.  Tears

Son 1 aged 4y 9m woke drowsily last night at midnight when I went to give him a goodnight kiss, and then followed me up to the Big Bed.  This morning I woke up and gazed across at his cherubic sleeping features… his long eyelashes still on his cheeks… masses of dried blood in his nostrils and on his lip and chin… and a great, dried stain of blood circled out from his nose on the changed-on-Sunday  sheet. He clearly still had bloody snot/snotty blood up his nose just from the sound his breathing was making, but I had Son 2 aged 22m yelling “Mummeeee” from downstairs so I just left him.  Does anyone know anything about  nosebleeds?  I think I’ll give him one more before I take him to the doctor.

All did not go to plan today.  Massively tired after yesterday’s excursion.  The car was booked in for an MOT and service. I turned the house upside down looking for my driving licence for the courtesy car. In the end I rang the garage: “Oh just come over, we’ll ring the DVLA.”  I did though remember to take my running kit to The Office. I’ve been getting good at going out again, and I’ve been enjoying it, and I didn’t want to let my fitness drop while The Man is away. Which means running at lunchtime. So, at 1330, I changed into bras, tee-shirt, shorts, socks… and then realised I had two left running shoes.  One from my old pair - which I’d used in the garden at the weekend - and one from the new pair. 

I worked like the clappers all afternoon so I could finish in time to collect the car before the garage shut, and let Wonder Nanny go home at her normal time.  At just the right moment to go there was a torrential rainstorm. Great cracks of thunder, whiteout lightning, hoofing it down. I waited and waited and waited. The sky was black, the air was dark, the traffic had stopped and there was water pooling and swirling in the car park.  I went for it.  It was 200 yards to my car.  I could not have got more wet if someone had stood emptying skiploads of water over me.  I took off my three-inch heels in the car and tipped out the water on the ground outside.  The rain was bouncing off the puddles like ricocheting bullets.  My mac was soaked, my skirt was soaked, my shirt was soaked.  My hair looked like I’d just come up from a dive.  The storm passed as I drove to the garage. As soon as I got out of the car there was another downpour.  I am, I suppose, lucky in many other ways.

1.  Pirates

2.  Lunch a deux

3.  The Cot

Back in with Son 2 aged 21m as I’m still not sleeping. Wakened by “Mummmeeee.” I peered round the pile of pillows I’d put between me and the cot to stop him seeing me. He peered back. “Boo,” he said.  I picked him up. “Wa-wa,” he said, pointing to the  glass on the bedside table.  I gave him a gulp, and laid him down beside me in the double bed. “Up,” he said.  Son 1 aged 4y 9m was already downstairs watching telly with The Man.  Son 1 has been busting for me to play pirates with him.  Pang.  I played it with him on Sunday but cannot remember the last time we played together before then.  He had the treasure, the monsters and the Tower Of Doom. My pirates were going to attack the castle. I put together an airforce of four Peter Pans and Tinkerbell, ready to attack his three-headed dragon. I took my eye off the Playmobil pirates for an instant and they’d been scalped, their earrings stolen. “Earrings are treasure,” I was told. Son 1 is Very Particular about how the Playmobil pirates are dressed - they can never vary from how they came out of their boxes. I’d put them together any old how.  Every now and then, during the battle, Son 1 stopped and looked at my efforts, shaking his head. “That is just so wrong.”  Afterwards, he and Wonder Nanny dressed them properly. She of course knows every set of cuffs and kerchiefs.

The Man and I left the boys with Wonder Nanny and went for lunch.  For us, a Good Thing.  We decided to move Son 2 into Son 1’s bedroom so I can read in bed if I can’t sleep.   We want them in together, and this week is a good time because I’m off and can sort/get up if things don’t work out.  

When we got back Wonder Nanny left for a doctor’s appointment.  The boys and I watched Ice Age.     ”Son 1, would you like to have Son 2 ’s cot in with you?” “Yes! Yes! Let’s move it now!” “Son 2, would you like us to put your cot in Son 1’s room so you can sleep with him?” “No.”  Wails from Son 1. Clearly, Son 2 hadn’t understood.  “Would you like to sleep with Son 1?” “No.”   I gave it one more shot. “Shall we put your cot next to Son 1’s bed?” “No.”  And yet it moved.  I really don’t think Son 2 was happy, but Son 1 was delighted.   I lay Son 2 down in the cot.  In the same position, in the same place Son 1 used to sleep, till he was about 2y 9m, when we moved him into his bed to get the cot clear for the arrival of Son 2.  Another Pang, and I don’t think it was back trouble.

1. Lazybones

2.  Young Bones

3.  Old Bones

A lie in till 8am… mainly because I worked so late last night I couldn’t get up. Not even for Son 2 aged 21m’s “Mummeeee!”  “Mummmeee!”s.  A Day Off.  The Man vanished off to Work. Son 2 posted blueberries in the funnel of his Postman Pat steam train.  We plodded around.  Son 1 aged 4y 9m had the Moon Sand out before Wonder Nanny arrived.  Son 2 wanted to play with the Moon Sand (banished, for throwing it,) write with a pen (mainly left handed but still swapping to the right to keep us guessing) watch the Bin Men (”Up me! Up me!”) and play outside.  Son 1 watched Cars.

We took The Boat out. As soon as we got aboard, Son 1 scoffed all his cheese and marmite sandwiches while Son 2 ate hummous and pepper.  Wonder Nanny and I hovered around him all the way so he didn’t hurt himself. We had our first chat and took our eyes off him. He went running to find Son 1, fell over and cut his chin.  We anchored at Two Pirate Cave Bay. The tide was so high the caves were full.  I got in the dinghy with the boys.  Wonder Nanny, in her bikini and belly button stud, dived off The Boat and swam to the shore. The beach was shingle, with sheer cliffs heading 200 yards up, covered in greens and white flowers.  There was boat debris on the highest water marks.   We coaxed Son 1 and Son 2 down from the rocks. “Cave!” said Son 2.  

I swam in the sea, taking forever to get in, but invigorated once I was in and moving. The water was dark green today, with patches of turquoise near the shore.  I swam to The Boat just to prove I could, and then across to a big rock near the entrance to the Two Caves.  I went in one, and then went back for Son 1 and carried him round. He was in Pirate Captain heaven. “Dig for treasure, me hearties!” “Dig till you find it!”  Son 2 cried “Cold! Cold” and we put the tent up to give him a bit of warmth. He ate more.  Wonder Nanny had us all looking for Sea Glass - bits of broken glass polished round and smooth. We found greens and browns and blues.  Son 1 wasn’t that interested, but I could see PIrate Treasure potential in a good collection.    Son 1 found a twisted, dessicated tree root. “A dinosaur bone!” “Yes, it’s just like a dinosaur bone, like a foot, but it’s a tree branch that looks like  a dinosaur bone.” “No, it’s a dinosaur bone, look, it doesn’t break when I smash it.”  A great shoal of shrimp was feeding near the rocks at the water’s edge. I netted 12, and Son 2 sat, fascinated, staring at them in our yellow plastic bucket.  BAck on the boat, we had everything. “Where’s my dinosaur bone?”  The dinghy went back to get it.

1. Excuse Me

2.  And Me

3.  Not Just Me

I give the boys a tub of fruit as soon as they get up, the Childcare With Serenedays principle being that I’ve always funnelled in at least one of their 5-A-Day before 7am.  So, while I was washing grapes and blueberries for Son 2 aged 21m, a little figure was pushing a green ELC chair across the kitchen. He likes to stand on a chair at the worksurfaces so he can see what Mummy is doing.  I like him standing on the chair, because at least I don’t have to carry him around. This morning, I wasn’t fast enough shutting up the dishwasher so he could get in. “Coos Me.  Coos Me,” he said, smacking the chair into my ankles.  He just is the cutest child in the world.

Son 1 aged 4y 9m doesn’t go to Nursery on Tuesday, so a sane start to a beautiful morning. The house is east-facing, so we had bright early sunshine streaming in to every room. “I wonder why Son 2 is waking up so early,” said The Man.  Both boys were lounging around in pyjamas, colouring, as I got ready.   Son 1 is great at colouring, does some amazing designs and spends ages choosing which colours and patterns to use. There are, of course, very many “Oh well done, Son 1, what a beautiful picture, I really like the way you’ve drawn that/colours you used/shapes you’ve made.   This morning, when Son 2, eyes shining,  held up his scraggy, holes gouged in it, scribbly biro-d yellow chick mask from the Environment Day, I realised the poor child has been trying to get the same response from me for ages.  Maybe when I’m less tired I’ll be smarter. 

I got back before Wonder Nanny left, which was a Good Thing. The boys were high as kites. They’d been to Nanna’s, who’d plied them with sweets and chocolate, and then to the playground in Nanna’s Village.  They were dirty and behaving badly, as they’d apparently done all day.  Son 1 tormented Son 2, and for the first time I witnessed Wonder Nanny snapping at him.  Thank God for that.  I have agonised over the quiet, reasoned, loving control she has over them.  Usually, when I come home from work, they are quiet, sedate little angels minding their ps and qs.  And then they go off like fireworks.  Because they were being so awful when I came in, there wasn’t the usual annoying disintegration for my benefit.  Son 2 sat still through his books; Son 1 was still pretty hyped but tolerable.  He gulped his bedtime milk. “Shall we ask the servant to bring us some more?” he asked. “Better not call him that,” I said.

1.  Cold Remedy

2.  Cold Symptoms

3.  Cold Water

Feeling very rough today, so I didn’t go into The Office. I had a pile of work to do at home, and planned to get a kip in the afternoon while Wonder Nanny took the boys out.   Son 2 aged 21m woke, and we did his books session. Son 1 aged 4y 8m joined us. i put the boys in front of the telly a few minutes before Wonder Nanny was due, and went upstairs for a Tea Tree bath. Not enough hot water.  Strange, because we usually only have hot water problems if we’ve had a set of back-to-back showers. 

Wonder Nanny had arranged to go to a playground to see her Nanny friend with the two little boys she looks after. She made a picnic and off the three of them went. For the first time ever, I was glad to see them go. I worked through the morning, and then walked into The Town for a break. Big mistake. I wasn’t up to it and didn’t really  recover. I had lunch and went to bed. I was woken at 3.45pm by a little face beside me: “Hello sweetie, are you all right?”

Wonder Nanny gave the boys their tea and left. And again, they went loopy.  I couldn’t really cope. I tried washing a beaker for Son 2’s bedtime milk. No hot water.  This meant Completely No Hot Water. I rang The Man, who, as this is a Positive Blog, I shall described as Not Very Much Help. i rang a plumber who can’t come till Thursday morning.  I boiled a kettle.  In my 70s childhood our council house had no central heating and no hot water. Boiling a kettle always marked the start of wash time.  Mind you, even then we had an immersion heater.  I have no idea where ours is, and The Man can’t remember.  I washed the boys one at a time in the bathroom sink, Son 2 first.  By the time I came to dry Son 1, I’d had enough.  No hot water, flu-stricken, single mother, and two rowdy, noisy, out-of-control boys.  Son 1 bounced and swirled as I tried to dry him. “Son 1 will you - ” “- Bugger off!” he said, laughing madly, his eyes dancing. He detected my I think I’ll ignore this thought. “Bugger off, bugger off, bugger off!”  “I don’t know where you’ve got that disgusting language,” I said. “Bugger off, bugger off, bugger off,” he said, pointing both fingers at me.  ”Mummy, do you want me to Bugger Off?”  he giggled.  No. But I do want you to shut the f*** up.  I think that thought stayed in my head. I suppose I will find out at bath time tomorrow.

1.  Splashback

2.  Flashback

3.  Backtrack

Son 2 aged 20m came in the bath with me this morning.  This was a Good Thing. From when he was tiny, Son 2 lay on his feeding pillow watching me in the shower.  Then he sat up and watched me i in the shower. Then he crawled towards the bath.  Then he pulled himself up.  And then he used to play in the water, every morning, while I showered and washed my hair.  Always. At some point recently he wouldn’t come in with me any more.  I can’t remember when. Son 1 aged 4y 8m had started watching DVDs downstairs instead of Ben 10-style CItv upstairs… and Son 2 was interested in some of them.  Or he was playing with toys.  I’ve given him the choice, and off he’s gone.  This morning we read 5 stories, and he decided to come in with me.  Played with his new watering cans, didn’t want to get out. Nice to have him back.

I went for coffee with a Colleague on maternity leave.  An eight month old little girl in the pushchair with us.  I held her, and realised I simply couldn’t remember either of the boys at that age.  So I’ve been back a year in the Blog.  http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2008/06/09/before-7am/ On June 9 2008 I’d just had an awful night with Son 2 screaming for me, so bad that I’d left him alone in the small hours and gone downstairs to make a cup of tea.  The following day I took him to a cranial osteopath.  Now he sleeps through the night, every night.  He can cry when I put him down, but never for more than 5 minutes. And today he went to sleep without crying when I left.  It all passes.

 Son 1 is mad about a Nick Sharrett book called “You Choose.”  It came from Nursery in his Bookstart box, and we start off choosing where we are going to go, what sort of house we will live in, who our family and friends will be, our furniture, clothes, food, transport, jobs, hobbies and bed.  Well, I choose, and Son 1 says “I’m coming with you.” Tonight we chose a tree house in a forest near a village.  Then we did Pumpkin Soup, A Pipkin of Pepper and Delicious. Then I asked: “Did you get the book for me?”  Oxfam, again, had a book in the window about a child with Son 2’s (unusual) name.  http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2009/04/29/well-done-mummy/ Son 1 and I had it from the library when I was pregnant.  It may have been where I first got the name idea.   I’d asked Wonder Nanny to get it.  “Yes.”  “Did you read it?” “Yes.”  What are the chances of Oxfam, a few hundred yards from our house, putting two children’s books in the window, both featuring the same very unusual boy’s name?   There is glue holding this world together.