1.  Orienteering

2.  Endurance

3.  Deliverance

A rubbish night’s sleep. Son 1 aged 5y arrived at about 0230 and then couldn’t/wouldn’t go back to sleep. The Man, on his first night back from his Business Trip, gave up on us and de-camped to the Double Bed.   In the end, secret co-sleeping advocate that I am,  I put Son 1 back in his own bed, put the fan on, lay down with him till he went to sleep and trudged off back to the Big Bed.  I still couldn’t sleep.  I was Tetchy and Touchy in the morning. But managed a sudden and sustained Cheer Up when I got into a pair of size 14 trousers.

We went swimming at the Hotel Pool with the Wednesday Friends. The older brothers were still in school.  I forgot Son 1’s rash vest, and was uber anxious about his bright red spotty chest.  Molluscum and eczema.  Great combo.  He couldn’t have cared less. Jumped in, splashed round, dived for sea horses and swam and swam.  He did one width, and then when I wa-hayed and clapped… swam back across the other one. And turned round and swam back again to get me to do it again. A little lesson in how much he’ll do for approval.  So I put him on my back and swam across with him giggling all the way.  Son 2 was great, his fists full of toys he wouldn’t let go of.. and still managing to kick his legs like mad to keep afloat.   At one point when he was getting tired he just hung in the water, watching the others.  I used to take Son 1 to swimming classes every week, and he started swimming in armbands at around 2. And Son 2 has never had a swimming lesson, and has started swimming in armbands at… er… 2.  

We met Granny and Grandad and The Man for lunch. The boys were so tired they only just hung in there, but we made allowances and got away with it. Back home they watched telly, I slumped on the sofa. Having Son 1 back on Wednesday was a Good Thing, and it made me realise how much I miss him.  Son 2 was remarkable. Didn’t sleep in the car after swimming, didn’t sleep in the car after lunch. Didn’t sleep or lie down in the afternoon. And this was after an hour of intense exercise in the pool. By tea he was collapsed against me, picking out the brocolli from the pasta shells. But by pre-bath reading, he had six books and was still trying to get me to do a seventh. He passed out pretty quickly at bedtime, but has just, as I write this at gone 10pm, wailed and wailed and wailed for me. We left him. We are neither of us capable of walking up a flight of stairs to go and see him.

1. A Helping Hand 

2.  Holding Hands

3.  A Big Hand

I helped myself to a lie in. Just couldn’t get up.  Eventually we all got going, but Son 1 aged 4y 10m was being strident and shouty, demanding and mouthy, picking on Son 2 aged 22m, not tolerating him when he buzzed his games.  Absolutely normal behaviour for a 4 year old boy, but The Man and I are Very Tired.  I took them swimming in The Hotel pool.  Son 1 was great, swimming and splashing on the noodle.  He still wanted to bomb and splash, but it was too crowded. And he had make-pretend games he wanted to play… but I had to keep Son 2 from drowning. ”We need Daddy, don’t we?” said Son 1. I think I may have to agree with him.  Son 2, smiling and eyes dancing,  will jump off the side without fear. I let him go under without catching him once, but he looked so shocked as he came up, gleaming, blinking and coughing, that I didn’t do it again.  He’s not as confident in the water as Son 1 was at his age, but then I used to take Son 1 to swimming lessons every week, and just for a play swim on Sundays. He ended the session: “Cold!  Out! Towel!”

Back home The Man had been in a cupboard and found the old plaster-casting kit we had for Son 1.    We took a beautiful cast of his hand when he was 6m, on a very giggly Sunday morning, with me holding a comatose Son 1, Nanna holding the impression bag and The Man pouring the gunk in. i would love a cast of Son 2, but he never sleeps deeply enough.  Son 1 was desperate to do his hand.   We added the water, and I squodged the bag round Son 2’s hand. “Don’t move it, DON’T MOVE IT! I screeched. And then saw the frightened look in his eyes. “It’s ok, you’re doing fine,” I calmed down.  It set, and we peeled it off.  It looked good.  It needed to dry for two hours before we could cast from it. 

Son 2 and I went upstairs to put him down for a sleep.  We snuggled into the Double Bed.  He snugged me for a bit, then wandered off over to the other side of the bed. He fell asleep.  So did I. He woke a couple of times, and wriggled back towards me. He fell back to sleep. So did I. I woke up and saw his little face peering at me. “Up!”  We went downstairs. “Mummy come and see my hand!” Son 1 pelted out of the lounge. We went down to the kitchen.  The plaster cast of his hand is perfect.  Individual fingers… a complete little four-year-old hand with no Pompeii-like cracks or broken bits. It’s lovely. “Will you keep it forever?” said Son 1. Yes I will.

1.  Tower

2.  Towel

3.  Trowel

I ended up in the Double Bed in Son 2 aged 21m’s room last night. With Son 2 and Son 1 aged 4y 9m. Didn’t work. Son 1 kept trying to reach across Son 2 to eyebrow me. Son 2 didn’t want him anywhere near him. Son 2 kept snaking off under the pillows, crying when he went too fast and bumped the top of his head on the wall.  Son 1 didn’t want him in the middle. In the end I put Son 2 back in the cot and passed out.   We stuck a Wiggles DVD on when they woke, but that didn’t work either.  Son 1 wanted to play with his Tower Of Doom.  I tugged it out from the corner of the room. Son 1 presented me with a dead fly he’d found on it.  We decided to clean it out.  Son 1 pelted off to get the duster.  A four year old in Bob The Builder pyjamas dusting off the battlements with a green feather tickling-stick was weirdly camp.  Son 2 earnestly rubbed with baby wipes.  Imagine. If I’d had girls there’d be a dolls house with matching pink furniture instead of a castle whose residents include a dragon with three heads and a lion with two. 

Son 1 was shrieking loud enough to peel the wallpaper off so I took both boys swimming. The only place that’ll have us is a Hotel Pool - we need more adults everywhere else - too deep for either child to stand.  Which makes it tricky. We had a good time, but Son 1 craves attention and a partner in his games, and Son 2, butch, bullish, braveheart that he is,  isn’t as confident as Son 1 was at the same age.  He can float along on his armbands but sees no reason why he should, and always sends a little fat hand out for my swimming costume.  He got tired, quickly, and pointed at his Tigger robe, draped over a handrail. “Towel. Towel.”  We span it out another 20 minutes.

After lunch we planted out our sunflower plants into big pots ready for our race. Nightmare. Son 2 took out handfuls of compost out of pots and spreading it over our astroturf. http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2008/06/11/boiling/ The Man got precious about the astroturf. “Weeds will grow in it.” Son 1 tried fending off Son 2, with predictable results.   It rained. Hard. We eventually got six pots, one each, one for Wonder Nanny and a sparee.  Son 2 looked longingly at the compost in the finished pots and went for a fistful.  I fended him off. With predictable results.  We have new pots, we have six foot 17p bamboo canes, we have our only sunny spot. We are off.

1.  Someone To Care For

2.  To Be There For

3.  I Have You Two

We slept in till 7am. I heard a wail from Son 2 aged 19m downstairs in his cot at some point… and I woke wearing Son 1 aged 4y 6m like a scarf.  Downstairs they gobbled rice cakes and Philadelphia. Then Son 1 watched Treasure Island, which he’d been given by my Old Friend yesterday.  Son 2 and I read, showered and then we all went up to the Big Bedroom and sorted laundry.   This was a Good Thing, as it can be hard with two under-fives wrecking piles and throwing small socks around.  The secret was to let them help.    They both got very bored and wandered off to unwind loo rolls instead. 

The Wednesday Friends were going to the New Play Centre.  I don’t go there any more, so we went back to the Hotel Pool.  We were joined by another Friend and her Three Year Old. This is the pool too deep for the children to put their feet down anywhere.  Son 1 had a brilliant time, swimming/running or jumping for nearly an hour.  Son 2 loved it too, relaxed in his little baby wetsuit, floating on his armbands, sinking himself by rolling over and then coming up smiling.  Son 1 alternated between the arm bands and the noodle, but was brilliantly confident.  He needs a little more help though with his Awareness Of Other Pool Users scores.   There was a grim lane-counter in a red swimming hat who was unsmiling and uncommunicative about her several near-misses from Son 1’s exhuberant jumping.  I lectured him.  But the New Me also kinda thought… Wet Wednesday in the school holidays, not a good time to pick for training…

The heaviest rainstorm I can remember, machine-gunning into the car roof.  The marvellous Parking Fairy put us right outside the house.  I mis-timed everything, we were out over lunch; I gave the boys chocolate eggs as their after-swim treat.  They were exhausted, sugared-up and hungry.  When we got in at nearly 3pm I gave them a picnic in front of the telly.  Popcorn, sausages, grapes, celery, carrots, peppers and kiwi fruit.  They gorged themselves on popcorn, ate the sausages and grapes, most of the peppers and some of the carrots.  Son 2 was a thug.  He tried to hog all the popcorn, pushing Son 1 away from the bowl. He tipped all the food off the plate onto the floor.  He took pieces of popcorn and threw them down the stairs, laughing madly.  He did a mega poo and I changed him, putting him back in the lounge with just his nappy on while I found him some fresh clothes.  I came back upstairs and he’d taken his nappy off and was running up and down naked, waving it above his head.   I made them a tortilla for tea, my usual guilt-trip of “why am I wasting time cooking when i should be playing with them?” made worse by me thinking they wouldn’t eat because of their picnic.  They wolfed it. We sang “I Have You Two” from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  Then they wolfed jelly. And fromage frais.  Well, Son 1 ate the jelly and fromage frais. Son 2 mixed it together and used it to re-point the high chair.

1.  Like A Duck To Water

2.  Proud As A Peacock

3.  Eggs

4am. Son 2 aged 19m woke screaming.  I went down and got him back to sleep in the double bed. And went back upstairs to read Two Lives.  He woke again. I went down again. It’s His Teeth.  Fast Forward. The Hotel Pool.  Son 1 aged 4y 6m wanted to go the Hotel Pool because he wants to go swimming with Son 2.  The Man won’t go with us, and you need two adults for two children at the Town Pool.  Not at the Hotel.  Son 1 had the noodle, Son 2 was in foam armbands and a swimming costume wetsuit.  We played in the baby pool, we splashed in the fountains. We played Humpty Dumpty.  Son 2: (pointing) Dump! Dump!” We swam. Son 2 can float a bit.  Son 1can push and glide, do dolphin dives and do star, pencil and frog floats.   Only not in the Hotel Pool, which is four foot deep all the way through.  They both worked incredibly hard.

After, we drove over to the Farm Butcher to get a joint for tomorrow’s lunch. Son 2 passed out in the Hotel car park.    He woke up when we stopped the car at the Farm Butcher.   Peacocks wandered around the car park.  As we all watched, a male spread its tail, shaking and shimmering at an unconcerned female idly pecking by.  It was fantastic.  Amazing moving colours, brilliant blues and emerald and lime greens.  In the shop, at the back, there were scores of peacock feathers sticking out of a row of about 10 vases.  “Let’s buy one,” said Son 1. “I don’t think they’re for sale,” I said.  “Ask the gent,” he said.  I did.  It is apparently bad luck to take a peacock tail feather outside.  You can take them in to a building, but not outside again.   Many people have asked for a peacock feather, but the Butcher is superstitious.  The Butcher himself went out to look for new one.  It was left outside by the door for Son 1, who was truly delighted with it.  Back home, the feather has not come into the house. 

We went to Nanna’s for tea.  Nanna always comes to us.  It was easier. But after a particularly difficult teatime, we decided to try every other Saturday at her house.  I dropped off Lightning McQueen buckets for her to use in an egg hunt.  We arrived. The boys took their buckets and went into the garden.  Son 1 found one egg and started eating. Son 2 found one, I peeled it halfway and he started eating.  Son 1, squealing, found marshmallows and more chocolate.  Son 2 found a Creme Egg.  “Ur Ur,” he said, having bitten through the foil to eat it, the other egg still in a hand.  I removed the foil from his mouth.  Nanna has a tiny ancient bird pond full of dark green water.  Son 2 went for it.  So did Son 1.  Nanna gave them tubs.  They scooped and poured.  Within 10  minutes Son 1 had soaked his clothes and was stripped naked. Son 2 was down to his vest. It was freezing, the skies charcoal. Upstairs was a vintage tin bath which Nanna used to bathe us in, 40 years ago.  I put a kettle of boiling water in it, added cold, and put it in the garden.  The boys both went for it, and, spotting it as the only available outside warmth, wouldn’t come out. The Man brought out new clothes, and we had tea.  Nanna had bought oven chips. “They’re not as nice as I thought they would be,” said Son 1 casually.   Our chips start life as potatoes, cut into chips, blasted  in the microwave for five minutes, dried and then roasted off for 20 minutes in olive oil in the oven.   ”Delicious, yum, yum,” says Son 1. Now all we need to do is get his manners as refined as his palate.

1.  The snooze

2.  Swimming

3.  The new train

Son 2 aged 9m just about made it to 6am this morning.  And Son 1 aged 3 and a half trailed blearily round the door while I was feeding him.  The Man is almost comatose.  A week away and the pace is beating him by length after length.  I sent him upstairs to watch Power Rangers with Son 1.  By 9am Son 2 was ready to collapse, so I lay down on the bed in his room with him, he cried a bit, arched his back a bit, and then off he went to sleep.   Lying beside a sleeping baby is just very nice.  Even now writing this I think I should have just stayed by him for longer, instead of going downstairs to play with Son 1 (= Working Mother “I must play with the other one while the baby is asleep so he has some quality one-to-one time.”)  We divided his jungle animals into meat-eaters and vegetarians.  The vegetarians are the goodies, the meat-eaters are the baddies.  Son 1 is a baddie, and I am a goodie.  Then he steals animals from my line.

Took the boys swimming in the hotel - which lets you go in with two children if there’s only one adult.  I was very keen to take Son 2, who loves it, and Son 1, despite all our efforts, wanted to go again, even though he was exhausted and had his swimming class yesterday.  The Man decided against going.  The hotel pool is ok, a bit cold, but there were plenty of families there, and both Son 1 and Son 2 seemed to have a good time.      It’s harder for me doing both… seeing me with Son 2 just drives Son 1 mad, so I tried very hard to do games that all three of us can play.  I’m getting there though.

Back home The Man was pottering and put a worn out Son 1 in front of a DVD.  I had Son 2 downstairs, playing with the new train we got him yesterday.  Fisher Price, multi-coloured plastic.  Son 2 loves it.  He loves pressing the button, sticking his fingers in the holes in the cubes, eating the cubes, shaking the cubes and making the music play.  Yes we know he’ll be out of it in three months’ time  … but even though we have Chinese container shiploads of toys, we haven’t really got many that are the right age for Son 2.  First time round we borrowed everything, gave them all back as Son 1 outgrew them, and they’ve all been loaned out again to someone else.  Son 2 plays with Son 1’s toys, and he’s got some presents from when he was born… but we seem to have arrived at a little gap in stocks at the moment.    The new train is 6m+ and brings Son 1 in to play with him.  Which is certainly helpful for Mummy… if less so for Son 2.