1.  Spellbound

2.  The Evil Queen

3.  New Lamps For Old

And again, I couldn’t get them up.  I have decided to Be Positive and Not Take This Personally.  It is getting darker in the mornings. That is why Son 1 aged 5 and Son 2 aged 2 are struggling in the mornings. Still, it gave me time to tumble dry Son 1’s school shorts. Which he sprayed yoghurt on in the car on the way home yesterday. Bloody Frubes again. So. I was Mrs Perfect Housewife and had them cleaned, dried and ready to be worn when I finally tow-trucked him out of bed this morning. He tipped milk down them when he was having his breakfast.   

Mrs Perfect Housewife turned into Mother From Hell this afternoon.  I picked up Son 1, who was leaping and laughing because we were going to the Joke Shop in The Town to see if they have a magic kit.  A reward for coming home with Heavenly Photos.  Son 1 wants a magic wand.  I agreed, thinking he wanted one of the ones he sees at parties - rigid in the hands of the magician, floppy when the children hold it.  Since saying ‘yes’ it has slowly dawned on me that he thinks a magic wand is… er.. magic. Anyway. Outside The House. Heading for The Town.  “I want to ride in the Pram.” “Darling you’re five, you’re too big. And anyway, Son 2’s in the Pram.” “Wark.”  “No, you go in the Pram, then we can get to the shop before it closes.”  “Wark.”  “Oh all right, but you’ll have to wear your reins. And walk, Son 2, no, don’t stop to look at a feather. If you want to walk, then walk. Son 1, I cannot manage you in the Pram and Son 2 on the reins. Son 2 will you walk! Put the stone down!  If you don’t walk you’re getting in the Pram…”  So.  I stuffed Son 2 in the Big Pram “Wark! Wark!” He cried and  corkscrewed and twisted himself out. Everytime he got out, Son 1 got in. I put Son 2 back in. He screeched so loudly people on the other side of the street stopped talking to look over.  And so I marched us all home, with Son 1 crying and begging to be allowed to go to the Joke Shop. At home I stripped Son 2, put him in his sleeping bag (to stop him climbing) pulled the blinds down and shoved him in the cot. Gave Son 1 a vast chocolate bar to stop him crying and poured a large glass of white wine. 

Son 2 and I are also developing a battle of the wills over toilet training. He wants to give it a go. I have just bought 132 nappies in two big boxes. “Wee wee!” “Oh, do it in your nappy.”  “Want loo. Want pot pot.”  He did another poo in the loo this evening.  I wanted to lie on the bed reading books to him. He wanted to get up and wee in the potty every five minutes. I have run out of chocolate buttons. Which should slow the little beggar down a bit.  I got them to bed and then sorted out the recycling.  Two birthday teas, two birthdays and a huge party have passed since the last collection. We have generated mountains of cardboard, paper and bottles.  I have positioned our pile far down The Terrace. To make it easier for the recycling men to load it on the lorry, of course.

1.  Biting Remarks

2.  An Audience

3.   Value

Forgot to tell you. I solved The Mystery Of The Broken Front Tooth on Saturday.  Vegetarians have great teeth.  Nothing we eat is crunchy or chewy or hard.  And we’re overloaded with calcium.  Yet I lost a fragment of front incisor.  I was more worried than I admitted to myself.  Crumbly teeth = getting old = poor Son 1 aged 4y 11m and Son 2 aged 23 with their toothless crone of a mother. The hygienist on Thursday blamed wine.  But.  On Saturday on The Boat I realised that hooray hooray, I am still young, I am not a drunk…. I just shouldn’t bite Frubes open for the boys.

We had a scrum to get Son 1 and me out of the house on time, and we were doing fine till we we encountered a massive queue of traffic. Broken down double decker. “What have they done with the children?” asked Son 1, craning his neck round. At School, we went in with X from Son 1’s class and his mother. ”X is looking forward to the party,” said Mother.  Yes.  X’s father rang me last night to say he’d be coming. Son 1 answered the phone, and brought it upstairs. He came into the bedroom just as I had my head in the cot singing Son 2’s lullaby.  I ignored him because Son 2 was drowsy and I didn’t want him fired up again.  So Son 1 thrust the phone at my mouth just as I launched into a reedy (but perfectly pitched) Summer-Tiiiimmmmeee.  ”Hello?” said a tinny voice. “This is X’s dad.  He’d love to come to the party.”

I’m still not 100% so I had a Hard Day At The Office.  I took a late lunch and did a Big Shop.  Including a  birthday cake for Friday, lots of little fairy cakes, and Tesco Value Hula Hoops.  You can’t Taste The Difference.  Two Variety Packs for Son 1.  Not 5 years old and I am bribing him with sugary food to get him to have breakfast. The worst sin is not  Son 1.  It’s “And me!” Son 2 who has to have what he’s having. I picked up Son 1 and we headed home. He went in, I unloaded the shopping. Not realising that Son 2 was howling for me upstairs.  We are thinking about toilet training Son 2, so at bathtime we give him a chocolate button every time he pees in the potty.  He has amazing control, and is currently averaging four buttons per bathtime.  I’m not breaking all the Sisterhood of Motherhood rules on sugar. This is science. His brother had nothing sweet till he was two, and is now a sugar junkie. So, in the interests of research, I am plying Son 2 with sweet things to prove that once he is two, he will choose celery sticks and cucumber instead.