1.  Two Faces

2.  The Lone Ranger

3.  Comedy Tragedy

Best Friend’s birthday party today. We had a present and a card but no wrapping paper. So. The plan was to go into The Town with Granny and Grandad, where we would also buy a scarey mask for Son 1 aged 5y 1m, to change one of his Dressing Up outfits into a Ghost Pirate for Halloween.  Before G and G arrived, the children were Very Hard Work. They did well in playing on their own in the lounge for about an hour while I tidied and did washing and hoovered. But then Son 2 got tired, they started bickering, Son 2 started squealing and needing me… Son 1 went nuts because I was trying to be sympathetic to Son 2… and I Could Have Done Better.  G and G arrived and they were still hard work. We pushed them both into the Town, Son 2 in the Big Pram in the hope he’d sleep, Son 1 in the buggy because he refused to walk.  It was Perfect. 

I got Son 1 a Marks mask (say that fast a few times each day and keep your jawline trim.)  We pushed them down to The Square for coffee to make Son 2 fall asleep.  Son 1 was still wrecked with tiredness, and alternated between being a cuddly on-the-knee want-my-mummy’s boy and a sulky nightmare. He had a hot chocolate and an apple muffin.  Son 2 woke up. I pushed him round the Square and The Museum, remembering the scores of times we did it when I was on maternity leave, hoping he’d fall asleep. He never did. ”Do you want to go back to sleep, or go back to the cafe?” I asked. “Hot choc choc,” he said.  Son 1 fed him bits of apple muffin, and then they both sipped through straws to share Son 1’s chocolate.   They looked adorable, and Granny and Grandad both took pics.  We went back. I stopped in the fishmonger’s to get some sea bass for tea with Nanna tomorrow.  I caught up Granny and Son 1 further on. “Son 1, where’s your mask?”  He hyperventilated. “Sorry Mummy.”  I power walked the 3/4 of a mile back to the cafe, where it was still in the booth we sat in. And then, worried about Son 2, I walked home with it as fast as I could.

Grandad decided he was going to rest, but Granny came to the party with us. Son 1 wore Captain Hook and carried his new mask.  Son 2 wore the same bat costume he had last year when he was 13m: http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2008/10/26/four-candles/ Aged 1 - 2. It’s supposed to last. Son 1 and Best Friend ran round together the whole time.  I was up, down, inside, outside, following Son 2.  A mother was there I hadn’t seen for while. She had an appalling time last year, (see http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2008/04/12/the-lesson/) and I still ache in sympathy for her.  We chatted; she’s brilliant. I hope.   After the cake and candles, Son 1, Best Friend and Son 2 picked blackberries at the bottom of the playground. ”Pop” went a balloon.  Back home we said goodbye to Granny and Grandad who are leaving early in the morning.  Son 2 accidentally punched me in the eye so hard he knocked my contact lens out. “Bring me a mirror!” I begged Son 1, who brought me my Chanel compact, broke it into bits, dropped the powder on the floor and then rubbed it all into the lino.  At least I found the contact lens.

1.  A White Rabbit

2.  Halloween Bats

3.  The Enormous Crocodile

The alarm went off.  Son 1 aged 4y 11m was in the Big Bed.  I had a nice snuggy cuddle, and woke up 50 minutes later. Oh my ears and whiskers.  Poor old Son 2 aged 2 didn’t get any stories.  Got up. Breakfasted Son 1 and Son 2, showered, dressed, did face and hair, scooped up Son 1, gave him a toothbrush and told him to do his teeth in the car…  and outta the door. Hellish traffic, but I have a Rat Run. “Have you cleaned your teeth?” “Yes.” We got to School in time to park up the Muddy Path. And then I saw the toothbrush. He hadn’t touched it.  “Just clean them now.” “No.”  He cried, he stropped, he dillied, dallied and dawdled.  The doors were closed by the time we got there.  And Son 1 was very upset. “It’s my fault,” I said. “For rolling over and going back to sleep.”  

At lunchtime I went looking for Cookie Cutters for the party bags. It is a Scooby Doo party, and I’ve been after for one Nice, Lasting, Cheap Thing to go in the bags.  They are getting Halloween cutters. I haven’t yet worked out how many children we have coming.  Doesn’t matter. We like making biscuits in our house.  We do, it has to be said, have a heck of a lot of boys coming. And two girls.  I haven’t told the parents of the girls that we have a slight imbalance.  Tra la la.   When I picked Son 1 up I let him see the cookie cutters, and he of course wanted to do the party bags when he got in. Oh boy.  As a friend said to me recently: “Why don’t you just try saying ‘no?’”   

Son 1 does Activity Time with The Man each evening while I’m bathing Son 2 and putting him to bed.  Then Son 1 and I read, him snugged next to me in the Double Bed, just ahead of popping him into his own bed, in his room, where Son 2 is already asleep in the cot. The Man’s being doing Son 1’s Jolly Phonics with him. We also have a reading book with a list of words we’re supposed to help hime learn. This week it is “I” “a” and “look.”  Son 1 and I read The Enormous Crocodile. I tried to get him interested in looking at the “looks.”  “I don’t want to.  Just read it.”  Then we got onto Bugs In The Blanket.  “I’ll give you a chocolate button for each ‘look’ you can find.” I said. He went to bed with a pile of seven chocolate buttons waiting for him in the morning.

1. Beach Babies
2. He Be Bees
3. Oopsies
The Beach and The Garden. I asked Son 1 aged 4y 2m to keep Son 2 aged 15 out of the way while I took the Big Pram through the kitchen. He led him by the hand to the door. A little figure in a dark blue parkha, holding hands with a fat round anorak half his size, tottering ahead of the Pram. So sweet. Fantastic weather, blue skies, clear air, no wind, crisp and cold. Except on the beach, where Son 1 was running around in his sweatshirt and I took my jacket off. Son 2 walked a bit and played a bit, and then insisted on eating his way through the lunch box.

One of the Wednesday Mums has married in secret. At Halloween. I am absurdly pleased. Hardly anyone we know is married. although Wonder Nanny has just got engaged. Wednesday Mum says it was a necessity - like going for a smear. She asked the Registry Office if she and her partner could have a Civil Partnership, but apparently not. On the way back to the car there were about 20 bees on the flowering Hebes in front of a hotel. Honey Bees and Bumble Bees. Whoops there go the ice caps.

Back home Son 2 fell flat on his face. Nosebleed. Ibuprofen. I sat with the howling child on my knee, dose of ibuprofen in a hovering teaspoon, waiting for breath to be drawn so I could pop it in his mouth. A great globule of blood landed in the teaspoon, turning the cloudy white liquid red. Nice. I put Son 2 to bed and Son 1 and I watched Shrek 2. Then we played with the balloons we blew up for Wonder Nanny’s birthday. They were weasels. They had to be captured, fought, rounded up, thrown downstairs and chased. Son 1 barked orders; I obeyed. Nanna arrived. She too had to obey. I got Son 2 up. He burst a balloon with his toe nail. Mmmm. A little sign that Mummy’s been skiving one of her jobs again.

1. Being Here Now

2. Stuffing

3. Bullseye

Getting back is a Praiseworthy Thing (been reading from the Booker Shortlist… also a Good Thing.) I’ve had a week of being ill and technological trauma. So. Today. Son 2 aged 14m slept for two and a half hours, and in the end I had to wake him up. He has done a couple of nights in the cot this week, but he wouldn’t sleep without me last night. Lifestyle Guru Hairdresser says I should just dump him in his cot and let him sort himself out. Soon. But he has little starfish fingers that gently pinch my neck till they find a bit they like to hold on to… and he has soft snuffly hair which he snuggles under my chin, and if I inch away from him he rolls his whole body into me…

Son 1 aged 4y 1m has a bucket of Trick or Treat booty gathered during a trek up and down The Terrace last night. He is allowed one piece after each meal, and thankfully hasn’t noticed that I have thinned it. None of our Friends did the Halloween thing… their children don’t know about it and they wanted to fend it off for another couple of years. I however have left Son 1 alone with Horrid Henry cds for 45 minutes at a time. So he wanted to lay his costume out on the bed. And in answer to a caring “What would you like to do today, Son 1?” question, said “Go upstairs and watch telly and stuff my face with sweets.”

Granny and Grandad said their goodbyes this evening; they are heading back tomorrow. They were delighted with and enchanted by the boys, but they don’t really do bad weather. They’ve booked in again for Christmas. We had a Last Supper of fillet steak, chips and peas. Or they did. My meal ended when Son 2 flung a lump of fillet at my lentil burger.

1.  The Triumph

2.  The Trip

3.  The Trident

I’d left a stale packet of gingerbread men on the worktop in the kitchen overnight.  Downstairs at 6am with Son 2 aged 13m, I gave him milk and banana.  “Boo,” said Son 1 aged 4y 1m.  I left them both in the kitchen while I went to the loo.  Son 1 appeared, laughing and eating a gingerbread man.  “Son 2’s got one too,” he giggled.  I shouldn’t have left them out, I thought.  “You shouldn’t have left them out,” he said.

We went to visit an Old Friend this morning, someone I’ve known 17 years, whose elder son is a week older than Son 1.   Another two boy family.  She has a lovely, immaculate house, a lovely immaculate playroom with individual boxes for each group of toys, a lovely immaculate garden, and a lovely immaculate kitchen in which she was effortlessly making lunch for seven.  And she’s seven months pregnant.  Hey ho.   The boys had a riot, Son 2 played with fridge magnets, saucepan lids and the home-made Playdoh.  Son 1 and Elder Son have known each other since they were weeks old, and used to be at nursery together.  Son 1 misses him.  “Come again soon,” he said, when we left.

Then a fourth birthday party in the afternoon.  Madly over-scheduled children.  A Halloween theme, held at a cricket club.  Son 1 wore a mask, and carried a trident, monster feet and a free pumpkin from a CBeebies comic.  Son 2 wore a little bat outfit I found marked down in Woolies.  A bright, sunny afternoon so all the children ran around outside.  Son 2 wanted to play with the dog.  And then crunched up the leaves and explored the acorns on a path.  He liked the wheels on the barbecue.  He liked the crispy monster balls.  He liked hanging onto my fingers and walking.  Son 1 played and played.  When we got back at 1830 The Man was home.