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The Man is back, The Plumber has been, the hot water is back on, and I have had a shower.   Son 1 aged 4y 8m slept in, Son 2 aged 21m woke up and came down into the kitchen with The Man and me.  He ate blueberries and banana.  He sat at the little ELC plastic table colouring one of Son 1’s drawings.  He’s left-handed two out of three times.  The Man is left-handed, so is Granny and the Elegant Aunt.  I wonder when it settles.  Son 2 has learnt to run. The child who never stays on the floor if he can climb, cannot pass an open door without darting through it and can tank off for hundreds of yards without a backward glance can now do it all a lot faster.  Hooray.  “Daddy, you should see Son 2 run,” I said. “He’s very good at it.” Son 2 stood, a big smile on his face, and ran up and down the kitchen, overjoyed.  And then started doing little jumping attempts - stopping, swinging his arms up, springing - without yet leaving the ground. It wouldn’t surprise me if he is trying to take off. 

I took Son 1 to Nursery. Sports Day, postponed from last week in the rain. Last week I could have managed, this week I had to drive over to The City.  Son 1 fell over badly yesterday. He was given a jelly teddy sweet and came home with black and red knees.  Son 1 has a weirdie hip thing which means he can’t run fast because his legs flay out sideways.   fr http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2008/12/01/faster-legs/  His Wednesday Friends are always tearing off without him.  “I am going to run very fast,” he proclaimed as we got out of the car. “Well if you don’t run fast today, don’t forget that you fell over so you have sore knees,” I said, over-protective Mother trying to shield her child from the harsh truth of losing. In he went, off I drove.

When I got back they were watching their new Wiggles DVD (we are going to see them tomorrow.) Son 1 had run in three races. The potato race - pick a potato in your bucket, take it back, run up for the next one… the egg and spoon one “I think someone put oil on my egg because it wouldn’t stay on the spoon.” And a straight running race. Which he won. “X was winning but I runned past him.” Ah. OK. I will be less fast. To write him off.  On the camera were some pictures of Son 2 in the under-threes race. Smiling. Sun-hatted.  Clearly loving it.  With Wonder Nanny.  Pang.  Maybe, just maybe, not every other woman helping a small child in that race was the mother…