1.  The Driver Of A Train

2.  Over Bridges, Under Bridges

3.  There And Back Again

I bought the boys a £3 DVD at Tescos. Despereaux, or something. This morning, just after the paper had been delivered, and just before breakfast, I sent them upstairs with Daddy to put the new DVD on. A small price to pay, I felt, for Peace On Saturday morning.  It didn’t work.  The Man cleaned and cleaned it, tried it again and again, and gave up. Son 1 aged 5y 4m was mutinous.  However. We had been planning a train trip to the Big Town for a while, for the sake of  Son 2 aged 2y 4m, who loves his train set and keeps pestering. So we would go by train, take the DVD back… and come back in time to have tea with Nanna. Easy.  Except… both boys were worn out. The station is well over a mile away. The Man carried Son 2 on his shoulders, I pushed Son 1 in the Big Pram.  I always check the ”How-old-is-too-old-for-a-buggy?” threads on Mumsnet, in the hope there will be someone on there still pushing a child older than mine.  Nope. We are the champions. 

They LOVED the train.  It’s a sad excuse for one, a single carriage on a single track, but the line soars above the Next Town, through cuttings, through tunnels, through woods, over viaducts and across rolling fields of cartoon countryside. Son 2 couldn’t sit down… Son 1 couldn’t sit still: “I didn’t know it would be like this!” “I can see pigs!” said Son 2, pointing at a field full of black plastic.  “Sheep!” “Cows” “Horses!”  Son 2 didn’t understand the stations. “Why we stop?  Make train go! I wan’ train go!” and waved cheerfully as we pulled away from each one.  There was even another family of four, also with a mighty three-wheeler, so the Big Pram didn’t stand out too much.  Although their eldest was about three, and the youngest was still in the sling around Daddy…

The boys went on the Merry Go Round; I sprinted over to Tesco and swapped the DVD.   We went to the Early Learning Centre… we went to the Museum.  Son 1 and Son 2 played… we went into the shop for a coffee. They were tolerable.  We may be making progress on the Eating In Public front.  Back at the station, we missed a train by seconds.  Not good. Son 1 and Son 2 off their heads with tiredness, waiting half an hour. Horrible.  The train, again, was a huge success, but they couldn’t behave.  We got them home, Nanna arrived and we put the new DVD on. “I’m very sorry Mummy, it was my sticky fingers that broke the other one,” said Son 1. The Man did the pizza.  During tea, Son 1 tried jumping from his chair to The Man’s. His bottom slid off the chair… he landed awkwardly on his foot and fell backwards… and impaled the base of his spine on the corner of a granite slab we have in a disused chimney. He screamed and writhed in pain. He’d grazed his back… in the shape of the corner of a granite slab.  Ibuprofen and calpol later, he’d calmed down.  After bedtime, Nanna babysat, and we went out for a drink for the first time since New Year’s Eve.  We both agreed we’d had a good time, and we both agreed we Must Do Better.

1.  Signs Of Love

2.  Good Intentions

3.  Warning Signs

Son 1 aged 5y 2m and Son 2 aged 2y 2m were so wiped out at bedtime yesterday that I was SURE we were heading for a lie-in this morning. Nope. 7am. Son 1, was as usual, in the Big Bed. The Man had gone Downstairs to try to get Son 2 back to sleep.   Son 2 wanted his breakfast. We were all getting up.  Son 1 was knackered. There was a lot of lying on the bed/on the floor/on the comfy chair watching telly. Son 2 was raring.  As the morning ticked on, The Man took Son 2 outside to play in the garden while he pulled down our rotten trellis.  Son 1watched more telly.  I rang Eldest Brother. Aged Aunt’s funeral is on Thursday. The Man says he’ll come.  Eldest Brother has found a box in which Aged Aunt kept every letter I ever sent her.  I am strangely, completely undone.   Eldest Brother is missing her.  “She didn’t have a bad life,” he said.  “She spent her life surrounded, or being cared for, by people who loved her,” I said. “That puts her in the top 1% of old ladies in the World.” I put my running things on, waved at The Man through the window and off I went. 

It’s the morning of the 5 mile run I did last year. five miles Tra la la. Last year I thought it was the beginning of Big Things. This year, well, I’ve been out 8 times in the last 2 weeks. I’ve realised that the point of the 10- weeks-to-get-you-to-running-12-miles-a-week training programme which I keep starting, isn’t to get you running distances… it’s to get you running 4 times a week. So. Walking 2 minutes, running 4 minutes, when every other runner in Town was doing 5 miles. Chicago, Chicago, it’s My Kind Of Town. I mentioned my Chicago Marathon Daydream to a Mum I know who rows a couple of weeks back. She went running that day, and has been seen out running since.  I have 11 months. I can still Do It.

Son 1 wanted Eggy Pie for tea, much to The Man’s disgust.  Son 2 stood on a chair and washed the potatoes. Son 1 aged 2y 2m used to wash potatoes. Yes, there was water and mud everywhere, but that was all. Son 2 threw the vegetable brush at the cactus, stretched up to press the microwave buttons, stretched for knives and scooped water from the sink with a spoon and drank it.  These are, of course, organic potatoes, with the mud and manure still attached.  Neat e coli.  Yum.  Son 1 came down to break the eggs for me. He cracks them and put the shells in the box. We need 5 eggs. We had 5 eggs. He went back upstairs for Even More Telly. I poured the mix into the pan. “I usually have more than that,” I thought. I fished in the bin. There was a whole egg in the thrown out egg box.  I cracked it into the pan and stirred it up a bit.  They all stuffed their faces, even The Man, who also had Ready Meal chicken pieces and dip I found in the freezer.  At bathtime, Son 2 reached for a Nemo toy Son 1 had left on the bathside. Son 2 didn’t realise that he needs the bathmat which covers the floor of the bath, and stepped up the bath wall.  He slipped instantly, did a half turn, slid straight down, clunked the back of his head and zoomed on his back straight under the water. I was just walking back into the bathroom as he did it, saw it, fished him out, cuddled him and let him go back in when he wanted to.  Of course I have never left him on his own in the bath before.

1.  Tessellation

2.  Acute Angle

3.  Fearful Symmetry

Son 1 aged 5 came in the Big Bed in the night.  Fast asleep, his little body seeks mine. Arms, legs, hands, touch,  touch, touch, snug,  snug, snug, following me around the bed.  I don’t think there’s a childcare book I haven’t read, so yes, I know I should be giving him the great gift of learning to sleep independently… but surely anyone seeing the unconscious behaviour of a small child in bed would conclude they are biologically programmed to sleep with their parents.   We of course are not biologically programmed to work ourselves into oblivion, which is why it all gets tricky. 

And which is why I get every bug going.  I still can’t speak, so I couldn’t go into The Office.  The weather was heavenly, so I decided to help my recovery by taking Son 2 aged 2y 1m to The Zoo.  He loved it. Monkeys, lemurs, ducks, deers, warthogs… “Next one! Next one!”  Lions, lynx, zebra, penguins, snakes, reptiles, frogs.  He walked and walked.  “I wan’ see lion.  I wan’ see lil farm. I wan’ see clip clop (= horses = zebras.)” After two hours I had to give up and we drove back. Son 2 fell asleep almost instantly.  I thought  a sherbert lemon from a bag my colleagues left would help my throat. The bag and the sweet wrapper crackled. ”I wan’ tweetie!” came a cry from the backseat.  At home I needed a rest. Son 2 wouldn’t lie down with me, so I went into the boys’ room, got into Son 1’s bed, and let Son 2 play with his cot and soft toys on the floor beside me.   I closed my eyes.  Something heavy smashed into my forehead so hard it nearly popped my eyeball out from the inside.  It was the lamp from on top of the headboard. Son 2, playing with the on/off switch, had pulled the flex and brought the heavy metal base down on my temple from two foot up.  The imprint is a trench in the bruise on my forehead. Being positive, at least we now know it’s dangerous. It would have cracked a little boy skull like an eggshell. “Mummy. Bump. Light. Head. Ouch.” said Son 2.

The Man collected Son 1 from School and the boys had the Sunday roast leftovers for tea. Just when I thought they’d finished and could be shooed up to bed, Son 1 reminded me that I’d said they could have jelly tot lollies for pudding. ”Ok, you can eat them outside as a special treat and we’ll read some books while we’re out there.” The evening was glorious. We sat beneath the fading sunflowers, and read Son 1’s school book. The boys gobbled the last pea pods off the plants we’d grown.  Son 1 was happy to have his bath and go to bed with Son 2. He dashed upstairs, sprinted into the bedroom and caught the side of his head full pelt against the doorpost, so fast and so hard he ricocheted off like a billiard ball.  He screamed, and cried loudly and horribly. I scooped him up, gave him a large slug of ibuprofen and made him an ice compress in a tea towel.  His left temple is grazed and bruised.  My right temple is dented and bruised.  On the same day, within three hours of each other, absolutely unrelated accidents.  How does that happen?

1.  Good Behaviour

2.  Best Behaviour

3.  Bad Behaviour

The Man got back yesterday, so this morning was easier.  We were at School on time, and I had, for the first time this week, got the right combination of books in Son 1 aged 5’s bag. The Jolly Phonics book; we are currently doing e-e-e-e-e-e, the Reading Book; in which Biff, Chip and Kipper’s no-need-to-work parents take them places, have fun and cook Proper Food, and the Homework Book with Things To Draw and Letters To Write.  I got a smiley sticker from Son 1’s Teaching Assistant as a reward, and I wore it with pride.

Driving, I stopped to take a phone call, and pulled over on a yellow line - no parking from 1 May till 30 September.  There was one other car on it.  I reversed back towards it. Crunch.  Oh hell.  It was a proper crunch, not just a bump, to be waved off with my dear old Dad’s “Bumpers Is For Bumping” motoring motto.  Opposite me, a coach driver, sat outside a hotel, watching. I took a long time on my phone call. And I thought about the Good Samaritan who put my Nappy Bag, containing cards, purse and phone, on my doorstep after I’d left it in the road. I wrote my note. “Sorry, I’ve reversed into your car. If there’s any damage call Serenedays on XXXXXXXXXX.”  I got out to look at the other car.  I’m not very good at cars. I have to read the make and model from the back. This one was a 4.2 litre Jaguar with a personalised number plate.  Ah. And I thought there was a scuff on the number plate, and a possible scuff on the gleaming paintwork. But I didn’t dare touch them to see if they’d come off. Not a mark on mine. I left my note on the windscreen, and off I went.

I looked in the homework book after I’d picked up Son 1 from school.  He only got 2/10, which I thought was a bit harsh.  Until I realised it was the date. He and Son 2 aged 2 wolfed vegetable soup and pasta for tea, and then he wanted to go to the Yacht Club.  We went down, but it was closed. ”Oh come on, will someone open the bar,” said Son 1. What kind of parents have their five-year-old queueing outside pubs?  We trailed away, and then met one of the bar staff arriving to open up. “It’s October,” she said. ”Winter opening times.” The boys played on the grass with some other children. The tide was high and the river was still. We sat and watched the boats on the moorings and the reflected lights from the docks.   The Jaguar owner didn’t ring. And now I am a bit worried he (why do I know it’s a ‘he’?) just thought it was an excuse to leave my name and number on a nice car…

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. It’s Raining, It’s Pouring

2. And Bumped His Head

3.  Up In The Morning

Up at a dawn to do some Office work because we wanted to take the children out tonight.  Then Son 1 aged 4y 8m woke up, full of excitement because it’s school sports day.  Less so when he realised he couldn’t wear his shiny new PE kit to school and had to wait.  When I dropped him off it was raining. “Ring at 11 to see if it’s still on,” they said.  I remembered at 1230.  Off. They’re trying again next week.

The Man came into The Big Town for some Business stuff and we had lunch. Very nice to see him.  He collected Son 1, which meant I was let off the usual Friday tear-across-Town to get him in time.  Back home The Town is having a Singing Festival. We thought it would nice to take the boys, listen to some Singing, wine for us, ice cream for them, put them to be late and get a lie in tomorrow morning. Easy.  So we listened to some Singers. Chatted to lots of people we know.  Had a glass of wine. They had orange juice and put money in the charity buckets. Ran around with the other children.  Son 2 aged 21 months climbed up on a plastic chair and held on to the back, just like he does with the ones at home. The heavy ones.  He pushed this one right over and fell, 3+ feet, flat on his face.  And screamed. 

His forehead was bashed in. I gave him Ibuprofen, he calmed down and we packed up and headed home. We put them to bed; we ate a takeaway; we went to bed.  I’ll go in with Son 2, I thought, so I can check he’s ok during the night.  I got in the double bed with him. I looked at his head.  Red and grey and big and bumpy.  I rang the Minor Injuries Unit. No answer. I rang the doctor’s out-of-hours service. Take him to A and E, they said. And so there we were, midnight on Friday/Saturday, me, Son 2, several groups of loud drunks, two very fat women and an old woman with long, dyed-black hair and tons of make up. Waiting Time Four Hours flashed by on a ticker screen.  Swearing. Police. Hospital security. Son 2 wanted to get down on to the floor, but I was sitting by the infection-control MRSA/c.diff noticeboard and didn’t want him to catch anything.  He grizzled. I let him, figuring nothing motivates officialdom like a screeching infant.  The receptionist apologised. She’d reminded the nurse we were here, but there was a difficult patient… After 45 minutes the nurse saw us, and we were put into a children’s waiting room. Son 2 came alive at the trucks, cars, fire engines and diggers. ”Someone’s got a nasty bump,” said an ambulance man, dropping off a baby with croup. A very young, very pretty, smiling doctor appeared. She shone lights in Son 2’s eyes, looked in his ears, watched him play and examined his bump. He was fine, she said, but he clearly had a bad fall and I was right to bring him in. She gave me a list of things to look for, and said keep him quiet and give him Calpol and Neurofen, because he would have a headache. We got home at 0230.

1.  The Very Busy Spider

2.   Peter Pan

3.   Bob The Builder

Son 1 aged 4y 5m and Son 2 aged 18m both slept through.   Three Reasonable Nights’ sleep out of four.  With cat-like tread I tiptoed downstairs.  0615.  Son 2 woke.  Son 1 woke.  We went downstairs in search of The Man, who’d gallantly slept on the lounge floor so he didn’t wake me up after a night in the pub. They invaded his makeshift bed.    We gathered snacks and drinks.  The Man and Son 1 vanished upstairs, and Son 2 and I started his books.  He had The Very Busy Spider three times.  The first library book I may have to go out and buy.   He can’t do the names of any of the animals, but he can neigh like a horse, moo like a cow, baa like a sheep and a goat, woof like a dog, miaow like a cat, quack like a duck and crow like a cockeral.  It really made him have a go at speaking. He loved it.

Son 1 didn’t squawk about going to Nursery.  He dressed himself, ate all his tub, and tumbled out of the house in plenty of time.  We listened to the end of Peter Pan on the way: “Oh Peter, Is There Anything You Can’t Do?”  I’m getting quite fond of Peter Pan.  For a 100 year old story, it’s not bad. A great plot, some raw mother-child bonding stuff,  three fairly strong female characters and a disabled anti-hero.  Son 1 went straight in without a whimper.

A grim Office Day.  I didn’t get breakfast or lunch, and wanted to snack as soon as I got back.  The boys wanted me.  I left them upstairs and went down for soup.  Before it was even in the bowl, I could hear Son 2 screaming and sobbing.  I went back up.  Blood and snot was pouring out of his nose and he was loud and hysterical.  “What happened?”  I asked Son 1. “I put a muslin on the floor and he fell over.”  In the bath, four little fingermarks were clearly visible on Son 2’s back.  “What happened?” I asked again.  “I put a muslin on his back and he fell over.” After Son 2 had gone to sleep, and Son 1 was in his bed I asked him again. “I’m not lying,” he said.  “Show me what happened on Bob Bob.”  Son 1 punched his soft toy Bob the Builder on the back so hard he flew across the bed.  Son 2’s lip has split open again.  I am going to take him back to the doctor tomorrow and give a little bit of helpful feedback on the caring hospital doctor who told me it was a superficial graze which wouldn’t scar.

1.  Reception

2.  Remembrance

3.  Remedies

“Thankyou Mummy for waking me up when Daddy got back.”  In the middle of the night.  Son 1 aged 4y 5m, climbing into the bed. Being sarcastic.  No memory of my carrying him down two flights of stairs for Daddy cuddles.   The Man being back is a Good Thing.  Yesterday marked 22 years of us Being Together.  One day Son 2 aged 17m will feel special because his parents were together for well over 20 years before he was born….  Two pairs of hands, so things were easier, although kick off was still 0615.   Son 1 was excited, Son 2 was happy but clingy.  Now both parents were around, he wasn’t going to get fobbed off with the Second Best one.  

We went to a Garden with a friend and her 3 year old.  There were nature trails for the children with treasure hunts, and we needed seaweed from the beach, so we trailed down the long steep woodland.  Son 2 walked a bit, was carried a bit, picked up gravel a bit.  Son 1 and 3 year old friend found sticks and fought, and looked in ponds for fish and frogs, and trampled through bamboo clumps.  Son 1 fell over and smashed his nose and forehead on the path.  The sky was blue, the sun was warm, there were few other visitors.  The big pond at the bottom of the valley was filled with foot-long rainbow trout, clamouring underneath a viewing platform, suggesting many packed lunches have headed their way.  Last time I’d stood there I was miscarrying Son 1 and a half.  The memories were vivid. Who we were with.  Son 1 aged 2y 2m in wellies, saying “I’m stuck!” when his foot was jammed between two rocks.   Holding his sticks all the way down.  The bleak, hopeless, misery.  We didn’t get onto the beach that time, so the vivid flashback vanished as we walked up and down the steps. All three boys loved the seashore.  Son 1 and his friend charged around, climbed rocks and balanced on walls.  Son 2 scrunched on the shingle and headed, time and time again, for the sea.   

Back home again and we were all exhausted.  Son 1 and I watched Madagascar.  Son 2 played “beds,” laughing, giggling, cuddling Mummy, and finally pulled out the Thomas Wooden Railway.  Son 1 joined us and we built a track and Son 2 put electric trains on it and added carriages.  He pushed the engines up the bridge and watched intently as they rolled down the other side.  At tea time I made pizza while they both went out into our miniscule yard with The Man, who was trying to put an artificial grass playsurface down across the lethal concrete.  Son 1 rushed for his toy tool set,  hammmered walls and tried to fit pieces of astroturf together.  He was in raptures, helping Daddy, playing with his tools, knowing what the job was.   Son 2 tottered about and fell over a lot.  They were both asleep in minutes of us getting them in their beds.

1.    Starting Early

2.    Sea Bass

3.    Looking Superficial

 A rubbish night.  Son 2 aged 17m woke screaming at 1am.  I went down pretty quickly and lifted him out of his cot. Rigid with tension.  How does he do that so fast?  It really makes me think there’s little point at this stage trying to leave him in any way to settle himself back to sleep.  He’s awake, he’s wound up… only a Parent will do.  At 4am Son 1 aged 4y 4m woke with a horrible croupy cough.  I heard him trailing upstairs to the Big Bed.  Son 2 seemed to be in a coma, so I gently lifted him back into his cot.  On the basis that anytime spent sleeping without an adult is a right step.  He woke.  And then he didn’t go back to sleep for an hour and a half.  There are times when he simply cannot settle himself - even when I’m there.   At 0530 I left him and went downstairs for coffee.  And i got some Office work done.  Which was a Good Thing.

Six Valentine’s cards in the window.  The Man’s, Mine, two cards (identical, bought by The Man) for me from the boys.  Two cards (similar, but different, bought by me) for the boys.  We had vague going out plans but decided they were too ambitious after the broken night.  Son 1 wanted to play with his Moon Sand, so we said he could during Son 2’s nap.  Then Son 1 wanted to hold a fish in his hands.  He was still thinking of the Sea Bass in the Fishmonger’s he’d wanted me to buy on Wednesday.  Fine.  We would go down and get a Sea Bass for tea.  Off we went.  Son 1’s haul from the charity collectors was one red rose and two red balloons.  We bought the Sea Bass. He held it in his hands in the Fishmonger’s.

It’s still in the fridge.  After lunch we were all in the lounge when Son 2 trod on the Castle of Doom drawbridge.  It collapsed under his food and he split his lip open on a pointy battlement.  He roared.  His mouth and nose were full of blood - his mouth was awash in it.  I took him up to a nurse at the Minor Injuries Unit.  She said they could glue it, but we could take him to see a doctor at The Hospital if we liked.  Off we went.  The Man and Son 1 came too, because Son 1 wouldn’t stay  behind.  The doctor at the Hospital said it was superficial, a graze, and she didn’t need to do anything to it.  We bought the boys back and gave them their baths.  It isn’t superficial.  It’s a whopping great trench, like an inverted V, and if it doesn’t look any better tomorrow then I’m taking him back.  The doctor, like so many I see these days, looked about 18.  But then as all her workmates are plastic surgeons, that may not necessarily mean anything.

1.   Storm

2.   Calm

3.   Seeds

Howls from Son 1 aged 4 y 4m when he plomped downstairs after two hours telly watching, found his Scooby Doo and the Pirates DVD and I said he couldn’t watch it.  “I can’t wait till this afternoon.”  “You can’t watch any more telly. You’ve watched cartoons all morning.”  Red face. Real tears.  “Forgive me Mummy.” “Darling you haven’t done anything.  I just don’t want you to watch any more telly.”  “If you let me watch it I’ll give you fifty pounds for your birthday.”  “Come and sit on my knee.  Son 2 (aged 16m) is very tired and he’ll need his nap this morning.  You can watch Scooby Doo when he’s asleep, and we’ll go out this afternoon instead.”   He composed himself.  I whispered.  “Go and tell Daddy he’s got to give you fifty pounds to give me.”  Son 1 padded over and whispered to The Man.  I held out my hand.

Another snug with Son 2 on the Big Bed to get him to sleep.  Little arms around my neck.  Soft hair, soft skin.  A friend ages ago said that lying down with a sleeping child is one of life’s great luxuries.  Son 1 watched Scooby with The Man, and I went for a run.   A bright, crisp, still morning with doves coo-cooing and sparrows twittering. I was in shorts.  Can’t remember the last time I was out running in daylight, or out running in shorts.  Down to the bridge over the river.  I did my stretches in the kitchen, with Son 1first trying to give me a cuddle and then lying on top of me when I was on my back.   From upstairs came a wail from Son 2.

We were blowing bubbles.  A consolation for Son 2 after an unfortunate incident in which someone screwed his finger into to the top of a toddler bottle, panicked when he screamed in obvious agony, couldn’t work out which way to twist the lid… and just yanked the finger out.  Deep groove in it.  Ahem.  Bubbles.  Son 2 chortled with joy, leapt up, clutched at them, laughed, clapped, giggled, and, finally, came to take the blower to see how it worked.  We were heading into The Town, so we mopped the floor before we went.  A friend walked past with his two girls.   We all met for lunch.  On the way back Son 1 stung us for some Gormitis:  “They have a Terrible Nature.”  Magmion is the Volcano King, smashing and trashing Hapless Peoples.  Delos is the Count of the Seas.  “And Stelios is the King Of The Air,” I told Son 1, who was sitting on The Man’s shoulders as we walked home.   Son 1 has gone straight from the ecologically, politically, ethnically, culturally, representationally-correct cocoon that is CBeebies into a world of Ben 10, Power Rangers and now Gormitis.   What lucky creatures are the women of 2034…