1.  Roast Beef

2.  Short Sharp Shock

3.  Red Red Wine

One of my mad, over-scheduled days. Son 1 aged 4y 9m, Son 2 aged 21m, Wonder Nanny and I were heading up to the Fun Park… and then we were having six friends round for dinner.  Tra la la.  I went for a run while the boys had breakfast.  We left before 11, stopping off at The Farm Shop to get the meat - a sirloin joint. ( I am an idle vegetarian cook.  Take one slab of good meat, put in oven for one hour plus, bingo, guests grateful and impressed.)  Son 2 was asleep, Son 1 wanted to get out. A peacock was parading its tail, so we let him. 

We got to the Fun Park in time for lunch. Both boys picked, but ate mighty pieces of cake. Soft Play Zone, then Scooby Doo house. Then a horse show in the rain.  The Fun Park train stood waiting in front of us as it finished, with the rain lashing down. We got in it. In the seats behind us was a family - very young dad, three year old ish boy, seven year old ish boy, young mum, very new (13 weeks) baby.  We chatted. Son 1 and Son 2 blagged cake from them.  Then the three year old boy bit the dad and the dad slapped him, hard and loud. The boy wailed.  ”Don’t bite me. Give us a kiss. I love you,” said the dad. ”What did he just do to that boy?” asked Son 1.  It was sudden, it was shocking, it was sickening.  I don’t think it was legal.  And the only thing I did was Stop Talking To Them.

We got back home at about 5, and The Man had manoeuvred a whopping sheet of plywood out of his shed and down into the kitchen-diner.  Son 1 looked at it. “Will there be crackers?” Which tells you when we last did a dinner party. http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2008/12/30/whales-and-snails/  We got the boys to bed “You can come down once.  If you come down once, you get a pirate book tomorrow. If you come down more than once, there will be no book. That’s the deal.”  Couple One arrived while I was down at the shops getting horse radish.  It has been so long since we did dinner that I timed the main course and the starter to be ready at the same time. Ar.  Didn’t matter. Clever menu.  Prawns, then Beef, new potatoes  and salads.  I had sun dried tomatoes and salads.  Couple Two arrived, then Couple Three, bringing an iPod with an Eighties Mix on it. We spent a happy evening guessing the songs.  We had a great time. Apart from me putting two bottles of red wine in the freezer.

1.  Foresight

2.  Hindsight

3.  Second Sight

I told Son 1 aged 4y 6m that, to mark the end of the holidays, we could have a Big Trip this weekend.  He chose the Fun Park, and he chose today.  Nanna, who on Sunday didn’t take Communion because she didn’t think could make it from the pew at the back of The Church, said she’d be fine with the huge amount of walking.  If we took the Big Pram for her to use as a zimmer frame.   I did a mega packed lunch, including coffee for me.  First, I don’t like the food or the cafe… and second I am trying to cut back. It took FOREVER.  Cost-benefit analysis.  Saved £20. But two bored boys allbut unravelled the carpets and peeled off the wallpaper.  Son 1 has a very sore and red left eye.  Worrying, as the Old Friend we saw on Tuesday was just over an evil bout of conjunctivitis. 

At the Fun Park, Son 2 aged 19m thought he’d entered Paradise.  Ponies and piglets.  “Dig! Dig! Dig!” at the climb-on diggers in the sandpit. Lambs and rabbits and chickens and goats.  Son 1 was insistent on going down to the Haunted House.  Soft Play in the dark.  Nanna sat outside while we played.  The Ball Pool, knee-high and low-lit, was being dragged by two men in Fun Park uniforms. Sort of dive, body plough, surface.  “Are you looking for someone?” I asked.  “A mobile phone,” one said. “Can’t you ring it?” “We don’t get signals here.”  We left them to go and play Scooby Do on the stairs in the dark.  

Lunch, a bit of a run round, some sliding with Son 2, and then it started to rain.  We played inside again, in a toddler area - ride on tractors, and  in another Ball Pool, where I played a game with both Son 1 and Son 2, lifting them up and letting them fall (slightly.)  And then upside down.  Son 2’s Ball Pool confidence grew and grew, until he was relaxed lying on top without moving while he waited his turn. And then there was a little castle which ran the length of one wall.  Son 2 was fabulously independent.  Climbing in, taking himself up and down steps, out-of-sight along walkways, vanishing until just a little red and white striped sock appeared, and then another, as he lowered himself down steps at the end.    Then back to the Haunted House and the Ball Pool there.  Son 2 sat, happy, letting himself sink till only his face was visible. Wiggling. “Dear little soul,” I thought. “He’s so good at these now.”  He leaned back and stuck up a little baby foot.  A bare baby foot.  No sign of the little red and white striped socks.   The wiggling had clearly been Son 2 removing them under the surface.  This time it was me dragging the Ball Pool. And it’s not easy.  By the time I found the socks, Son 1 had taken his off. They were exhausted when we finally left.  We got back in time though for the Pharmacist at Tesco.  Son 1 has a stye, not conjunctivitis.  We have ointment. And a proclaimation: “You’re not putting that stuff in my eye!”

1.  Birthday Presents 

2.  The Fun Park

3.  The First Straw

Son 2 aged 1 slept through.  He has three tiny white prongs poking through, with a red, swollen bit in the middle of his gum.  Poor little Lambo.   He was up before Son 1.  Son 1 aged 4 today came upstairs first thing and ripped through the family presents: an airport from Nanna, a Scooby Van from Son 2, a sword and some books from us.  Then went to his room and opened his party presents, which were piled under the bed.  I have made a list, but dear God when do I get two sets of thank yous out.  Then downstairs to the drum kit.  He pulled off the pirate paper we’d draped over it and just stormed on for the next presents - a couple which had been left downstairs.  Son 2 loved the drum kit.

We went to the Fun Park.  I’d promised Son 1 a Trip for his birthday, without realising that by the time we’d done Son 2’s birthday, The Town Festival, The Man being away for a week, the Birthday Party and the Big Town Park… we would all be dropping with exhaustion.   Still, a deal is a deal as Shaggy - and now Son 1 - says, so off we trooped.  About an hour away, The Fun Park is cheap (except to get in,) amateur and not very clean.   Farm and small animals, various play rooms, various outdoor attractions and rides.  But it was a lovely day, and we had it almost to ourselves.  Son 1 loved it.  We went on a water slide, we played Scooby Doo in the Haunted House.  We played in the ball pool, we climbed 25m up some rigging (go go go older mums,) we went down a log flume.  I love it when I am his playmate and get bossed about “Come on, Mummy.”  Son 2 was miserable and needed Calpol, but he managed to pat some ponies, play in the ball pool and play in the sand pit. He didn’t eat very much today, but is drinking a lot of milk.  He’s on cow’s milk in the daytime now, he had his last formula yesterday.  Memories to cherish: Son 1’s baby-toothed laughter as we scrambled out of our boat on the water slide; Son 1 driving little electric cars around a tiny circuit - needing to use the accelerator and the steering wheel correctly. Son 1’s blue tongue from a long chewy snake someone bought him for his birthday which he took all day to eat.  Son 2 stretching his hand out for the ponies and goats, and for the ball pool, and crying when we took him off for his lunch instead.  Son 2 carefully dipping his breadstick in his hummous and licking it off.

We got home in time to see Nanna and Elder Sister arriving.  Son 1 had to eat his tea and then we were breaking out a Scooby Doo cake I bought yesterday.  The Nice Neighbours called round with birthday presents for both boys.  We drank bucks fizz and ate cake.  Son 2 hi-jacked Son 1’s Innocent smoothy, and used it to teach himself how to drink through a straw.  It was like watching a monkey learn how to get a  peach down from the top of a cage.  Son 2 recognises the cartons because all the boys on the beach drink them, and he’s mineswept them before, just chewing the straws to get the sweet juice on them. So he knew he wanted the carton.  Then he chewed the straw.  Then he sucked and a bit of liquid shot into his mouth.  Then his little mouth was going nineteen-to-the-dozen as he tried to make it happen again.  Then he made it… again and again…then he cracked it.   We didn’t get the boys to bed till 20 to 9.