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.  Son 1.5

2.  Sinking

3.  It Seems Like Only Yesterday

Still not doing very well with the fluey cold. I woke this morning with Son 1 aged 4y 8m in bed beside me, tiptoed downstairs for coffee, and suddenly it seemed a very long and hard day ahead. Yesterday was the due date for the one we lost, and even though the following month I was pregnant with Son 2, I still wonder about that child.  The LMP date for him (I will always think of him as a boy) was Sept 11, which is Son 2’s birthday. The only person who will ever know or care about this stuff is me.   Son 2 aged 21m woke, on fine form.  “What would you like in your (snack) tub?” “Gape.”  “What else?” “Boobee.”  We read and stuck stickers upstairs. Son 1 aged 4y 8m pootled down. “I think I should have my fish when I am four, and then I can have more fish when I am five.” “You can have your fish when you’re five.” “I can’t wait that long!” Son 1 says his fish will be called Fluffy and Coupon and Walbert.  I might have to get them early just because he’s chosen such great names.

One Wednesday mother was working. We went to a playground.  The other Wednesday Mum had made sandwiches for all the boys, left on a table top in a takeaway container. A seagull pecked through the lid.  It rained. We gave up, and went back to the other family’s house.  I drove down, and as we arrived we were told that Mother had had to break into her house because she’d left the chain on the front door and gone out the back.   Son 1 and Son 2 had a good play with the three and a half year old.  My paracetamol cocktail wore off, and I started flaking out.  We came back, went into The Town because Son 1 wanted Apple Pie and Custard for tea, and then I made tortilla and buttered spinach.  Son 2 tried licking the butter off the spinach before giving in and scoffing the lot.  We are still boiling kettles for washtime, and yet again, it was very hard. Both of them machine-gunning me at top volume for attention at once, and me with zero energy craving stillness. I think the hot water is the Final Straw. They’re upset by the hole blasted in their routine, The Man being away, and me being incapable because of my bug. Bedtime was awful, and I wasn’t very nice. Being Postive, both The Plumber and The Man will be here tomorrow.

I have had an email from The Boy Who Broke My Heart When I Was 19. I logged in yesterday and there he was.  “I’m betting it’s you. You may not welcome this contact in which case tell me where to go, or ignore, else how are you?”  I replied and said don’t worry, it was fine, how was he?  He’s emailed today with a bit more detail about him.  I’m sure this is the plot of a book.  Our heroine, in relationship for 22 years, married for 18 of them, has children incredibly late, and while struggling with her work-life balance, her besotted small sons, her often-absent husband, swine flu and a major domestic crisis, is suddenly contacted by someone from half a lifetime away.  I’m also sure They All Live Happily Ever After.