1. Before Time

2.  Lunch Time

3.  Home Time

Not yet light. I am awakened by fierce eyebrowing.  Son 1 aged 4y 9m hanging round my neck, compulsively stroking my eyebrow and fingering my closed eyelids and eyelashes. Vaguely conscious, I rolled over to check he wasn’t on the edge of the bed.  I was on the edge of the bed. He couldn’t get in. He was standing ,slumped over me, cuddling, with determined little fingers going for my eyebrows. I heaved him up and over and he was instantly asleep. I’m not even sure he was entirely awake.  Next thing I knew, there was a loud stage whisper in my ear. ”Mummeeee.   Mummmmeee.  It’s five, four, seven.”  Son 1 cannot tell the time, but he can read a digital clock.  “Go back to sleep.  We don’t get up until it’s at least six something.”  And I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him how soon that was going to be.

One of the men at The Office left today.  He’s going to work Far Far Away.  He’s very young and very special, and we are incredibly sorry to see him go.  There was a pub visit at lunchtime, which is sadly surprising for  us. ”Are we going to a proper pub?” said a male colleague. “We always end up at girl pubs.”  Indeed we were.  Seven men, two women.  Many pints of bitter.  They were all fast, funny and weirdly disparate.  Vegetarianism: “I will eat fish but I have to know it’s sustainable and caught using cruelty free methods which don’t wreck the marine environment,” said a Dark Green Colleague. “I’m vegetarian so I can have a tumble drier,” I said, using one of my latest (not necessarily true) lines. “You’ve got children so you’ve already wrecked your carbon footprint,” said the Dark Green Colleague.  “I’ve recycled someone else’s, so I win,” said The Colleague Who Adopted.

Back home, Granny and Grandad - who arrived yesterday - were in the lounge with Wonder Nanny, Son 1 and Son 2 aged 22m.  Granny and Granddad are staying at The Hotel With THe River View.  They’d been down to The Museum, where the boys coloured copiously.  They had apparently been perfectly behaved all day. Granny and Granddad cannot believe how well they’ve come on. I started putting them to bed, and The Man arrived back from his Business Trip.  Son 1 shrieked at the sound of his key in the door.  Son 2 stood on the landing and jumped up and down for joy.

1.  A Suitable Boy

2.  The Wake Up Call

3.  Homecoming

Yesterday, before I left, for my overnight trip, a colleague was telling me about her student daughter.  She has chucked the Very Suitable Boyfriend.  The New Boyfriend is 11 years older.  His band is called ******.  Their single is called ****.  He wears a pink leotard.  The Very Suitable Boyfriend keeps ringing my colleague to give her updates on the Unsuitability of the New Boyfriend.  My colleague is “letting them get on with it.”

I drove through the rain to The Big City.  I met colleagues I hadn’t seen since before Son 1 aged 4y 4m was born.  It was great to see them, and I’m pleased I went.  I stayed in a hotel, looking forward to my lie in, missing Son 1 and Son 2 aged 16m, but looking forward to my morning off.  The phone rang, extraordinarily loudly, at 0530.  I couldn’t work out what it was.  It stopped. It started again.  Amazingly loud.  I picked it up and put it down to stop the noise.  And lay, wide awake, pondering the chances of an alarm call coming to the wrong room and disturbing me on my second morning ever sans enfants.  I told my story to my colleagues over breakfast.  Great news.  I am not the World’s Most Unlucky Mother. It was the fire alarm.  

A colleague told me about a mutual acquaintance who, when I last saw him, was going through the process of adopting his last child.  She is now 4, and a delight to the family.  When she was 2, they had a phone call from social services.  The birth mother had had another child, a girl, with a number of serious health problems.  The family could be considered first.  For a number of reasons, they’d had to say no.   I thanked my lucky stars, counted my blessings and there-but-for-the-graced.  To go through their journey, and then to have to make a decision like that on a bolt from the blue… I just about made it back for bedtime.  The Man has Flu.  Son 1 has a horrible croupy cough.  Son 2 has a cough, not quite so horrible, but with definite potential.  Son 1 has a huge scratch on his cheek: “It was Son 2!”  They were madly excited as I came up the stairs.  They are too wonderful to be left.