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.