1.  Daring To Kiss

2.  Spring Animals

3.  Dinner With A Friend

I spent the night with Son 1 aged 4y 4m.  He’s still hot and bothered. I got up just before 5am, and decided I Do Not Drink Coffee till 6am.  I cracked at 0520.  Did some admin/paperwork.  The Man got up.  Off on a Business Trip.  Very pleased to see me Downstairs.  He’d thought, as I wasn’t with Son 1, that I must be behind closed doors with Son 2 aged 17m.  The Man dares not go into The Lightest Sleeper In The World’s bedroom, and thought it would be bad luck to leave without kissing goodbye.  After all these years I think that counts as a Good Thing.

A text from a Wednesday Mum.  Little Three Year Old Friend fell off the new bunk bed ladder last night and has broken his arm. Overnight in The Hospital, in theatre this morning.  I rang.  Tib and fib.  Carried off in an ambulance.  Five weeks in plaster ahead.   We went off to the Bird Park.  It was indescribably busy.  Every table packed, buggies everywhere, people standing round the edges.  The Other Wednesday Mum went for coffees while Son 2 and I played in the toddler area.  A table became free right next to it.  I stepped over and plonk.  Camp struck, Good Thing bagged.  Son 1 played, but as his calpol wore off his mood crashed.  We went outside. Down to the Farm.  The goats weren’t hungry - half term, they ‘d eaten hundreds of bags of pellets.  they just wanted grass.  There was a great fat black pig with ten gorgeous tiny piglets.  As a vegetarian, I can enjoy the cuteness of piglets guilt-free.  The quails had chicks.  The Big Fat Hens had laid eggs in the hen houses.  We went up to the Penguin Pond.  Son 1 climbed up on the wall and sat, in a “W,” which meant he takes up three times as much room as a child sitting cross-legged.   About sixty children were crammed round the wall.  Buckets of fish arrived with two keepers.  “We need about 12 volunteers!”  Every had shot up.  Son 1 has learned from previous disappointments, and is now much better at getting picked.  He was the best penguin-feeder by far.  Coat off, shoes off, dive into bucket.  Fling Those Fish.

Only. We’d forgotten Nanna was coming at 4pm.  I tried ringing, and off we sped.   Her car was parked near the house, no sign of her.  My mobile went.  She was waiting with our neighbours.  We drove down to The Square and went into Pizza Express for tea.  The boys were worn out and loudly fractious.  And then in came Son 1’s nearly six-year-old friend with his Mother, just back from the panto.  They sat on the other side of the restaurant, and Son 1 spent the entire meal with them.  I sent over a glass of Pinot Grigio as a babysitting fee.   So. Rude to Nanna, but he wate nearly every scrap of pizza, and Nanna and I got our food. Son 2 went for a walk round the restaurant with Nanna, fell over, hit his nose and split his lip open again.

After a long, late, exhausting bedtime, I rang 3 year old’s father at home, and then his mum in the hospital. They were both within 1m of him when it happened.  Second rung from the bottom of the ladder, foot slipped in, child fell and they heard the “snap.”  He has two greensticks and one proper fracture.  He was X-Ray Of The Day.  He’s on calpol.  He seems fine.   In the next bed is a little girl still recovering from the car crash in which her brother died.  It’s really only a scratch on Son 2’s lip.

1.   Larks

2.   Wild Mutt

3.   Penguins

Another disturbed night - Son 1 aged 4y 3m this time, arriving in the Big Bed, kicking The Man out and keeping me awake for 2 hours.  It is wonderful being so loved by a small boy who wants only to snug up, cuddle and stroke my eyebrows, but he heat-seeks and then pummels, wriggles, tugs and grabs to position his Parent for maximum comfort.  He does it all while he’s stone asleep.  And I am not.  Another late start.  I wanted a Family Day Out.  Just the four of us, after 10 days of friends and family.  The Man was keen on a beach, away from freezing blasts of wind.  Or leaving just enough for a kite.   Son 1 didn’t want to go to the beach.  “Why not?” “Because I have to wash my hair when I go to the beach.”  “Only when you have sand fights.  Where do you want to go?” “To the Bird Park.”  A comedy half hour followed, in which The Man tried to persuade him to go to The Beach.

We went to the Bird Park.  Son 2 aged 15m played in the Ball Pool and toddler zone.  He loved sitting on the air jets, his breath blown away, his wispy fringe vertical, throwing balls overboard.  He flopped in the balls, he switched the jets on.  He followed Son 1 around the Under-5 climbing area, laughing as we sent him down the slide, happy and determined to copy his brother.  Son 1 was Wild Mutt, growling.  And Upgrade.  And Four Arms (I misread that one on the Top Trumps cards.   I thought it said Four Bums.)  The Man took him off round the more advanced gear.  We swapped boys and I chased Son 1 and he chased me.  I climbed and slid and scrambled and clambered.  “Animal Box time,” said Son 1, and at last I got a coffee.

After lunch we played again.  When it was time to move on I asked Son 2 “Would you like to go and see the birds and animals?” and he resolutely toddled off towards his Pram.  “There are owls and parrots and penguins and otters,” I said. “What would you like to see?” ”Raaaargggh,” he said.  Ah.  No lions here, Oh Dear.   We have had three misses in a row at the Penguin Pond.  Small children are allowed to feed the penguins.  Son 1 had a whole bucket of fish to himself one gloomy termtime afternoon when he was 2.  Recently however we’ve lucked out. First, we went in school holidays and there were too many children and Son 1 didn’t get picked.  Then they were cleaning the pool and not doing public feeding.  Then I muddled up the times, and we got there too late.  This time Son 1 got picked and excitedly took off his coat and got on with his task.  Except when I made him stop so I could take pictures.  Which was quite often.