1.  Gasping

2.  Blowing

3.  Snorting

4.  Bubbles

“Darling,” I said, putting my arms around The Man’s neck before he had his teeth in. “Men are Protectors.  Women are Nurturers.  Your job is to be Be Strong.  Mine is to Cherish.”  “What are you after?” he asked. “There’s a dead rat by the back door and I ain’t touching it,”  I said.  The large, clear-eyed, glossy-coated rat we saw sitting on its haunches in the back yard, gazing straight at us, coincided with the head lice outbreak. http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2009/10/05/the-ugly-bug-ball/ I didn’t put it in The Blog; I forgot.  So often happens with life’s little nasties when you have a Positive Attitude.  And then I looked up rats on Mumsnet. The post that haunted me said that the problem isn’t the one you see, it’s the huge family out of sight. So we called the Rat Man and he came, last Saturday, in an unmarked van.  He put one box down in the yard, behind a paving slab “where the boys can’t get it,” said The Man.  Yes darling I’m really going to let them play in the yard when there’s a rat the size of Son 2 aged 2y 1m living there. Another box went in the alleyway next to the house.  I went downstairs this morning. I put the kettle on. I put the first load of washing on.  I went to take the rubbish out, glanced through the window and there it was.  Smaller than before, the sheen on its fur gone.  Looking like it had died crawling out of the drainpipe across the doorway.   Which of course it probably had.  27 years of being asked why I’m vegetarian. Because I cannot cannot cannot stand critturs dying.

The Man is off on another Business Trip tomorrow, so we took Son 1 aged 5y and Son 2 out for breakfast.  By the time we got to the Cafe, Son 1 was so hungry he couldn’t behave.  The Man thought it was a disaster, but I think they’re improving.  Son 1’s eyes lit up when he saw the straw in his drink. He “always gets the bubbly glass,” and a few splashes of pineapple juice were spattered around. The Man growled.   Son 2 watched intently, took his straw in his little mouth and blew out his entire glassfull. The Man barked.

There’s another Festival in The Town so off we went. We met Friends with a 3 year old, and took the boys into the Marquee to paint shells.  Son 1 was Perfect Child, mixing a base colour, dabbing, adding glitter, doing twiddly bits at the edges. Son 2. It didn’t start well. He dabbed a great blob of red paint on the end of a paintbrush. And then I decided to take his reins off. The paint got on his reins. And on his hair, up his nose, on me and all over the nappy bag. I tried babywiping the paint out of his fringe and it just got rubbed in and looked like I’d dyed it. Then the red paintbrush went in the green paint tub. Then the glitter, which they were supposed to take little pinches of and sprinkle, was upturned onto his shell. Then he globbed blue paint all over Son 1’s shell and the tanks came over. I had to buy £6 worth of raffle tickets to make it up to the woman.

We did ice cream, we did coffee. We bought sausage rolls for lunch and Son 2 fell asleep. The Festival was packed. We bought a bottle of sparking white wine with six plastic glasses - four for us and two for whoever  turns up as soon as you’ve bought a bottle -  and sat down in the sunshine on the pavement by the side of The Museum.   A wedding party trooped past on the way to a boat trip from The Quay.   The boys crayoned, posted gravel in breeze block holes, and played with Go Gos and Son 2’s farm.  A friend walked by with his dog, and helped himself to a glass from the back of the Pram. The local policeman passed. “Vagrants!” he called. “Just drinking outside before it’s banned!” I called back.  The sun and the shadows moved round… the wedding party returned. We pushed the boys back home and gave them ready meals for tea.

1.  Ghost Busting

2.  Crowd Spotting

3.  Crab Grabbing

I’m keen to watch Wall-E, which had fab reviews. Son 1 aged 4y 10m and Son 2 aged 23m have had it a week now. They’ve seen it, The Man’s seen it, Nanna’s seen it.  This morning I sat down to watch it with the boys. Son 2 stuck it for about half an hour and then started drifting about. He posted coloured craft lolly sticks and crayons through the hole in the side of Son 1’s bass drum.  He spread small Playmobil pirate pieces all over the floor. He climbed the sofa, the Man’s chair and my chair. To the top, scaling the summit of the seat backs.  “All right,” I said “I’ll get going and have my shower.”  Son 1 tried to persuade me to stay. “You haven’t seen the ghosts yet.” “I can watch them next time.” “Do you know what you need if you see a ghost?  A magnet. Did you know that?” “No, I didn’t know that.”  Son 1 nodded. “And it has to be a strong one.”  I can only assume this is something to do with Scooby Doo.

We took the boys out. To the library to change their books, and then down to a cafe to give them chips for lunch. We picked up Glamorous Young Friend, who we’ve not seen for a while.  She’d been in The Town working on her fancy dress outfit for the Festival finale. We sat outside at the front of the cafe so we could people spot. We usually sit in a great big area at the back, usually empty, where small children have no impact on other people. The change was enough to send Son 1spiralling off into orbit. He was awful. He knew the cafe, he knew where he sat.  “Oh come on Son 1, sit here, watch the people and let’s see who’s the first to see someone we know.” It was me. Thank God our friends and his little 3 year old friend headed past. They joined us. “Rude not to,” said the Dad. Little 3 year old is so delighted because Son 2 says his name. 

We bought crabbing lines at the Discount Store, and went down to the riverside at the end of The Terrace.  We’ve had various comedy fishing trips on The Boat: “Omelette again, Mother,” and we’ve had the odd successful crabbing session on assorted quays and jetties up and down the river.  This afternoon though it was like we’d Cast Our Nets On The Other Side. The crabs almost jumped out of the water into our buckets.  Little 3 year old’s Mum was the champ - she caught a whopper.  Which did in fact jump out of our bucket into the water.  Son 1 was leaping around with excitement, barking orders, spotting crabs, tugging at lines. Little 3 year old was casting bacon with a fishing rod. Son 2 was sliding around on the slippery green river wall trying to be Big. I caught a few tiny shrimp with him and put them in a bucket so he could look at fish. The Man caught a couple of huge shrimp, which he put in our bucket. I’m pretty sure his shrimp ate our shrimps. It’s a crab-eat-crab world.  It was brilliant, but Son 2 was very hard to handle.  He wanted to lean into the water, he wanted to grab the bait hooks, he skidded and stumbled on sea weed and limpets, he wanted to carry the buckets. He wanted to catch something himself.  With a score of well over 15 crabs, not including our escapee, and two shrimps I declared for tea.  “Can we go fishing again tomorrow?” asked Son 1, as I got tea ready. I said we could. “Can we got straight after breakfast?” I said we could. I have a feeling tomorrow’s may turn into our earliest family breakfast since December 25.

1.  Grey Day

2.  Blue Tongue

3.  Red Sauce

Each year, the Village where some Wednesday Friends live has a Spring Bank Holiday Do. Each year it is wiped out by the weather. If this year was a not a success, the Do would be scrapped, and the Village would be, as the Wednesday Mother put it, f++**d, as the proceeds pay for the playgroup and the OAP outings and the Hall.  And so, at 12 noon, I pushed Son 2 aged 20m in the Big Pram through sopping wet, calf-high grass and cowpats the size of carpet tiles.  Son 1 aged 4y 8m trailed alongside, complaining that he needed wellies as his trainers were already soaked. All of us were in waterproofs, battered by a sharp Northerly wind, an oppressive, overcast sky and cold, hard, rain.   

We found Best Friend, Younger Brother, the Dog and the Wednesday Mother. We sat on the matting in a Small Top. (Supposed to be a Big Top. But…er.. it wasn’t.) Son 2 cried and clung because he didn’t want to be close to the Dog. Son 1, BF and YB ran riot on the staging.  A unicycle display began - including the man I saw surreally unicycling past the house well over a year ago. http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=34 We saw a family whose father is away with The Man on his Business Trip.  We bought popcorn. Son 1 rode on a mini carousel. Son 2 cried because it was free-hanging so he couldn’t go on it. We found another with a baseboard and Son 2 clung to a pony, carefully taking my hands off to prove he was Big Enough to ride alone.  Son 1 had blue candy floss. Oh La La the blue tongue and teeth.  Son 1 went up a high bouncy castle slide, came down once, went back up and then sat at the top crying. The owner’s daughter had to go and help him down the stairs. And I got my pound back.

Son 2 cried and clung, and I bought him chips. He ignored them, preferring to dip his finger into the tomato sauce and eat that.  He was frozen, so I stripped off his mac and put a hoodie and a thicker coat on him, and went back into the Small Top.  Son 1 had already found our other Wednesday Friends. We watched some acrobats twirl around upside down in long sashes up in the roof.  Outside, the boys’ old (male) Nursery Nurse was making balloons for children. Son 1 joined the gang to watch, Son 2 sat in his Pram. The music thumped. Son 2 fell asleep. 

The 2nd Wednesday Mum bought me a mug of Spiced Chai, and we sat chatting while Son 1 disappeared inside a teepee with the Nursery Nurse and a gang of children. Son 2 was soundo. The other Wednesday Mother joined us. Son 1 emerged with a balloon sword. Five boys ran round, sword-fighting, inflatable hammering and allbut darting under the wheels of a steam engine.  I can’t remember the last time the 5 of them were together.  When they interfered with the natural willow-woven made-from-recycled-material sculptures once too often, we decided to head back. 

At home I thanked Son 1 for a lovely day. “Thank you for a lovely day as well, Mummy.”

1.  Stringing Together

2.  Strung Up

3.  Strings Attached

The Man wanted to go to a beach to fly the kite which Brother and family gave Son 1 aged 4 for his birthday.  I wanted to go back to The Square and drink more English sparkling white to celebrate stopping feeding Son 2 aged 13m.  Excited at the idea that The Man had started sentences with “Let’s…” and “Shall we…?” I thought we’d better do his thing.  First we all went down to the Tesco Metro to do some shopping for the coming week, when he has another Business Trip.   We brought it all back to the house, and then off we went with The Big Pram and The Buggy, to the beach.  At the bottom of the hill, the Man remembered he hadn’t given Son 1 his penicillin.  They waited; I trotted back to the house.

Son 1 loved the kites, Son 2 loved the beach.  The first kite wasn’t a success.  The Man whined at me for not being a kite-flying expert.  Son 2 was crawling among the shingle and seaweed, where dog poo and broken glass lurked.  Various dogs the size of ponies were charging up and down the beach, their owners hundreds of yards away.  The Man was on his own with the kite, and terribly sorry I was too.  The old kite was better.  Son 1 just laughed hysterically at tangled strings, crash-landings, great gusts of wind, runaway aircraft and any attempt The Man made to tell him what to do.  It was priceless.  Son 2 watched it all with the superior yet faintly worried expression of a headmaster in the playground at lunchtime.

We pushed  them home via The Festival.  Packed again.  Son 1 saw a 4+ girl friend from the Old Nursery.  He was very excited.  “Hello Son 1,” she said, in a resigned voice.  Then, hearing grizzling from The Pram, she perked up: “Is that Son 2?”  I turned the pram round and he reached out to her. At home they watched a DVD and played drums and keyboards. I made bangers and mash and cheese and onion sauce and broccoli.  Son 2 wolfed it.  Son 1 ate it, every mouthful cajoled down by me.  He sang a song about putting plums in boxes.  And then the killer chorus: “Thank You God for the Harvest.”  The New Nursery again.  I had walked four miles. I’d made tea from scratch.  I was about to, again, deny Son 2 a breast feed. I left Darwin for next time.

1.   Battle

2.  Festival

3.  Party

There is another Festival in the Town.  The Plan was to celebrate stopping breastfeeding with champagne in The Square.   We dawdled and dilly-dallied over getting up.  Son 2 aged 13m was yawning, eye-rubbing, high-pitched shrieking and falling over every three minutes.  I got the hint and put him back to bed. Son 1 aged 4 had Mummy Time.  Playing on CBeebies on the computer.  And then out came The Pirates.  I’m ambivalent about Pirates.  My tens of thousands of regular readers will know that Son 1 first became enchanted with Pirates in Feb 2007, aged 2y 5m.  There was a Pirates 3rd birthday. A Peter Pan 4th birthday.  I was kinda hoping that maybe somehow Power Rangers or Spider Man or dinosaurs would move in at 4+. But then I wasn’t. Because everything we have is Pirates.  And, bored out of my tree as I am, I will miss them.  Like the breastfeeding.  So.  The Pirates were going to raid the new treasure chest.  But… exciting new twist… a Power Ranger Megatroyd was defending it.

We trogged down to the Festival.  It was packed, and we were hugely popular, with our Big Pram and rickety MacLaren.  We’d told Son 1 he could paint shells, like he did last year, and the year before.  He wanted his shells, I wanted my champagne, The Man wanted seafood.  Son 1 and I fought our way to shell-painting, and he was happy.  The Man got seafood, stuck a bottle of English sparkling white in the back of the Big Pram and shoe-horned it in the Marquee.  Son 1 painted earnestly, Son 2 ate the glitter pens and painted his own shell.  My plastic glass of bubbles stood on the table in front of the pre-schoolers. We met friends. The children played.  They all went on the bouncy castle, and Son 2 loved it, trying to dive-bomb it afterwards when I was taking him for a nappy change.  I shopped and bought cut-price Usbourne  books and  a birthday present for Granny.     

Son 2 spotted there was something missing.  There was an Office retirement party which I had to go to.  It was really lovely.  One colleague was retiring, one colleague - someone I’ve worked with for 17 years - was leaving to become a childminder.  Everyone came, so there was much reminiscing, pouring over old photos and laughing.  I took Son 2’s great babyring for the childminding colleague.  One of those we-could-get-thirty-quid-on-ebay-or-the-local-paper-oh-you-have-it-I-hope-it’s-useful decisions. It was a great do, and I got back way after midnight.  We bought the retiring colleague a star.       

1. Nightime Action

2. Morning Action

3. Afternoon Action

4. Evening Action

A truly awful night.  The Man was leaving at 3am for his Business Trip flight.   Son 2 aged 1 woke up when we tried to go to bed and then nothing, but nothing would make him settle.  The Man left.  And the three of us slept till 0745, which is very late for us.  I didn’t rush getting up, because we had nothing on for today, and I thought we should have a quiet one.  Then Younger Sister rang from The Hospital.  Nanna was in and she had to ring at 12 to see how she was.  She was coming over.

We went down to The Festival again.  Son 1 aged 3y 11m in his Captain Hook outfit again.  It’s a long old walk, so we had Son 2 aged 1 in The Big Pram, sleeping it off, and Son 1 in the buggy with his hook and his sword.  We saw some friends, with their 2 year old in the buggy, also dressed as a pirate.   They ran round together.  The friends had to go. We walked up and down looking at the attractions, Son 1 and I queued for one for just a few minutes, got on and then had a much better time than yesterday.  Son 2 screamed.  Younger Sister, performing valiantly, offered him cocktail sausage, sandwich and breadstick.  He went for apple.  When Son 1 and I got off he ate nearly an entire banana in a few seconds.  Many, many people asked to take Son 1’s photo.  Younger Sister rang The Hospital.  She needed to get Nanna at 2pm.  So we needed to leave.  The weather was truly awful and we (the grown ups) got very wet.  The boys were in their buggy bubbles and were fine.

When we got back Son 1 played with the new toy he’d blagged off Younger Sister.  I hung out the washing while Son 2 played in the kitchen.  I heard him doing baby singing.  I wonder if he’s got the Nursery Rhyme finger puppets, I thought, and started singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” from the hall.  When I went back in to the kitchen, Son 2 was playing with the Nursery Rhyme puppets.  Sweetest Boy.  And then Son 1 materialised.  He’d heard Mummy singing and had deduced that Son 2 was getting Mummy Time.  And was downstairs in a heartbeat to claim his.  Son 2 has been balancing on two feet a lot today, and then plopping down on his bottom with a proud grin.  Showing two new teeth which have just cut through.  I must, I must, give him the benefit of the doubt at night-time.

Nanna’s angiogram was fine.   Son 1 made it onto the regional telly news.  I’d invited our friends to the house to watch the Festival fireworks.  They rang to say they couldn’t come, as he was feeling ill.  Son 1 cried and cried.  We decided that however tired he was, I would wake him in time for the fireworks.  At 9pm, while I was washing up and drinking yesterday’s champagne, the friends texted. Feeling better.  Coming now.  I woke Son 1 but he never really came round.  Wouldn’t watch the fireworks.  Which were lovely.  We finished the champagne. 

1. One Year

2. The Event

3. Birthday Tea

Son 2’s first birthday.  The year has whizzed by.  The first three or four months in an up-all-hours washine-machine-non-stop blur of reflux… then two months of preparing to go back to The Office… then six months back at work.  Son 2 is a delight; determined, opinionated, joyful, adoring, and independent.  Almost mobile - he was tanking up and down the kitchen on the pushalong trolley today, solving all his falling-down problems and getting up again.   We gave him a little wooden music centre with an inbuilt drum, chimes, xylophone and other rattles, cymbals, scrapers and bells.  Son 1 aged 3 y 11m gave him a plastic ambulance.  Two books (from last night,) a crocodile castanet and a drum with clacky beads on it, and a little woooden tool kit. Son 1 could not help unwrapping the presents.  Wonder Nanny gave him a little remote control car - in the hope that his very own remote control might stop him from pinching ours all the time.

We went down to the Festival again.  Again, with Son 1 in his Captain Hook outfit.  We queued for 45 minutes for one of the attractions, and then were supposed to wait even more while they let a school party on.  I complained, and we were allowed on with the school party.  I had to bribe him to smile nicely for a picture.  Yes I know that’s the road to early death. The wind again was wild, which made everything cold and difficult.  Son 1 got quite into it, and then ran up and down the tarmac jumping in and out of puddles.  We gave Son 2 his lunch, and pushed the boys back, stopping off for balloons on the way back.

We had a birthday tea, the Wednesday friends, Nanna, Younger Sister,  Son 2’s Godmother and the Godmother’s son.  At 20 past 3 I remembered I hadn’t picked up the cake.  It was very good, little building blocks with the letters of Son 2’s name on it, icing, ribbons, writing.  Son 1 couldn’t keep his hands off it.  We had the candle moved and a little fingerprint scoop.  The Friends turned up on the dot of 4 o’clock, when Son 2 and I had barely finished making the Get Well Soon card for Nanna who’s got an angiogram tomorrow.  Which meant the carrots weren’t washed.  Which meant the only vegetable matter served was red pepper and grapes.  Son 2 had: an octopus bath toy; some Peter Rabbit books.  A singing robin.  A squirty bus. Some wooden diggers.  Six Fisher Price building blocks.  Some Nursery Rhyme finger puppets.   The Little Friends trashed the house and toys; the grown ups chatted, and occasionally wondered who was upstairs In Goal.  Champagne was drunk. Happy Birthday was sung.   The Cake was devoured.  Six building blocks, six small boys.  I put the one with Son 2’s initial and “1″  on his highchair tray and he had reduced it to its atomic components by the time I’d finished giving the other five out.  We lost the brother of the child we lost yesterday.  Only this time he’d shut himself in the loo and was just taking a very long time indeed to do his stuff.  Fathers arrived, had beer, ate cake.  It wasn’t a party of course, because there is a joint party a week on Saturday.  But it was an event.  Because Mummy wanted an event.

1. Siesta 

2. Fiesta

3. Blessed

Son 2 aged 11m slept through the night.  Tum ti tum.  He’s been in a 1 Tog sleeping bag the whole summer.  Because he cannot overheat or He Will Die A Cot Death.   He’s pooed in one and the other is in the wash so last night he was in a 2.5 Tog.  And didn’t murmer.  Tum ti tum.  Maybe the cry I thought meant “Where are you all?  Come Baaaaaaaack” meant “Bring warm plump parents I am freeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing.”    

There is another Festival in The Town, the roads are closed, the flags are out, there are stalls and music everywhere, so we off we went  to meet the Wednesday Friends.  Son 1 aged 3 y 11m walked all the way through town in his Captain Hook outfit.  “And why did he get that?” said one mother, witheringly.  Because Mummy needed to see if it fitted (= couldn’t wait to see what he looked like in it.)  And was then unable to get it off him. The children played in the Museum; we went into the Marquee so I could feed Son 2.  A swing band started up, Son 2 really enjoyed it and kept pointing.  We lost a child, we found him.  Son 1 went in The Big Pram and fell asleep.  Son 2 was in the sling - another advantage to his being small. I walked them back and Son 2 stayed awake all the way.  At home he walked up and down the kitchen on Son 1’s ELC wooden trolley.  With his grapefruit smile and his hearty chuckle. 

I ran round the Headland tonight.  I went through The Town so I could see what was going on for the Festival.  And I guessed the Bookshop would stay open late and I wanted to get a couple of last-minute presents for Son 2.  It was gloomy, grey, windy and wet.  I wore tracksters and a long sleeved top - bought by the pre-children me in Fort William, on my 40th, “to wear when the baby is here to get my figure back.”  But I was over-hot, so I think I’ll go back to shorts.  The Headland was misty and drizzly with a wind at the Far Point that slammed into you like a train.  I remembered the evening I walked round it crying in the darkness after the miscarriage.  And I remembered the evenings BC when I ran round it in the pitch black, with the occasional sweep of the lighthouse on the Headland Opposite the only light.  And then I got home, and we wrapped Son 2’s presents, and toasted him with a glass of Cava, because the champagne wasn’t cold enough.  We’ve done the first year, and we have another heavenly child.