1.  Rendering Unto Caesar

2.  Why Take Ye Thought For Raiment

3.  Suffer The Little Children

How To Halve Your Shopping Bill.  Walk to Tesco Express, instead of driving to the Superstore. Take a Big Pram, a large partner and two small children.  The grown ups are allowed one basket each. You are limited to what you can put under The Pram or carry home. And you have to race round like it’s a trolley dash because of bored, misbehaving children trying to sneak Halloween sweets into your shopping.    The Man took Son 1 aged 5 to choose a breakfast cereal. They came back with Chocolate Cheerios. “If we get those then we will never get them back on normal Cheerios and that will kill our main snack/emergency meal/blood sugar lift option,” I said, barely looking up from the Mild Chedddar.  Son 1’s face crumpled. “But I said he could choose what we wanted,” said The Man. ”Fine. Get them.  See what happens.” “They’re not Cheerios,” The Man tried. “Look, they’re Wheetabix.”  “Fine. Get them.”  “Well how am I supposed to know? This is the first I know about your new rule.  You should have said something.” “I did. Yesterday. When we were discussing how to get Son 1 to eat breakfast before school, and you said you’d seen Chocolate Cheerios. I said they’ll never eat normal Cheerios again if we get them.” “Oh yeah,” he said.  They trailed off together and came back with a Variety Pack.  So. Half price shopping.  The baguette broke on the way back, and so did the handle of the big box of (special offer) Fairy… but otherwise I feel we saved money, burned calories and even gave up drinking because we couldn’t carry any wine home. Value Was Had.

Granny and Granddad are visiting this week. They turned up with fairy cakes and flapjacks for Son 1 and Son 2 aged 2y 1m.  The boys couldn’t be bothered to leave the toys and telly long enough to go and let them in… but when I said There Is Cake they charged downstairs.  The Man went off on his Business Trip. G and G went off to check in to the Hotel With The River View.  We went upstairs into the Big Bedroom, because I want to move Son 2 out of 9m to 12 m clothes. I want him in 18m to 24m, but I have a nasty feeling that because Son 1 was bigger, he was in spring/summer stuff at that age.    I am The Mother So Efficient She Had Two Same Sex Children At The Same Time Of Year. And they’re different bloody sizes. Have some more cake, Son 2.

The Vicar rang on Friday to ask if we were going to Tea Service this afternoon, so we thought we better had. Granny came too. We did David And Goliath.  The boys made cardboard and silver foil shields. They did ok in the service - legged it during the Lord’s Prayer, but at least they started off still sitting in the pew, and then scoffed their dinosaur shapes, cheesy mash and veg tea. In the bath, Son 1 Sang Hosanna.  I tried to explain the words to him, without committing myself. “You can’t say you don’t believe in God, Mummy, or He’ll die,” Son 1 told me.  Eat your heart out Richard Dawkins, all you need is Peter Pan.   At his christening, well over three years ago, he was given a My First Bible, with child-friendly language and child-friendly illustrations .  Time to break it out, I thought. We did David And Goliath. We did Noah. I left Son 1 looking at it while I put Son 2 to bed. When I came back he’d found pictures of the crucifixion. “What are they doing?” “Seeing how long they can stay up there,” I said, quickly closing it and flicking backwards. Jesus in Gethsemane, being kissed by Judas while Romans stood about with spears and torches. “And what are they doing?” “Going On A Bear Hunt,” I said, putting it away and getting out You Choose. ”Did they catch one?” “I think so.”  Wrong on many levels, I know, but he’s five, it was late, and I am a moral coward.

1.  ?

2.  >

3.  +

Getting Out Of The House.  The first Good Thing.  One of those mornings.  The Man and I went out with a couple of friends last night for a few birthday drinks and I just didn’t get up early enough. I read to Son 2 aged 1y 10m; he kept suggesting other books and I didn’t like to say no.  I couldn’t find anything.   I definitely had my mobile last night as we left the house because I called a friend to see if she could come out. I rang it from the house phone. No ringtone. Bother, Blast, Blow.  Just what I needed, the hassle of replacing my phone. I called the Hotel With The River View.  Nope, no-one had handed anything in. I went to get my mac.  The phone was in the pocket.  The mac was hanging at the back of the house where there is no phone signal.

The Office was a long, hard, mad slog.  But I did get out at lunchtime and went to TK Maxx.  Hell.  Not the place for a rainy summer school holiday.  Kagoules, harrassed mothers, snappy teenagers and loud and lively Little Ones. Gridlock.  I tried on dresses.  They have some lovely silks, cashmere and linen. But sadly my size 14 days have not returned.  I am in the beautiful clothes in every way except, shall we say, across the bodice.   I have simply got to run it all off. 

I was back home at a reasonable time, and decided to sail sweetly smiling through bedtime instead of my increasingly usual hurry-up-I’m-busy-hungry-tired mindset. It worked very well and we were done by 1930.  I started work, The Man started work. I went to bed at midnight, when the light was still on in his shed, out in the back garden, two-thirds of the way up the cliff.  I should check, I thought, in case he’s had heart attack up there and is lying, slumped over his paperwork, life flowing away… Then I remembered my Positive Mindset.  Off to bed I went. He’ll be fine, I thought.

1.  Pets

2.  Peace

3.  Perfection

Son 2 aged 21 month’s head bump looked pretty grim this morning, and I am glad I bothered to heave him into Casualty last night. He seemed fine, but tired.  We went to a Garden Centre.  Younger Sister bought the boys sunflower seed kits, and we have to pot the seedlings on, so we were looking for pots. The Garden Centre  has tropical fish, garden fish, gerbils, hamsters, chinchillas, parrots, canaries and rabbits.  Son 1 aged 4y 8m has decided that he wants a fish for his birthday. He is very excited by the idea. I have said it will help him get ready for having a dog, which he is not allowed till he is 6.  At the Garden Centre, we met the mother of a friend from Nursery.  Who has 5 dogs.  I quickly established that Nursery Friend has an older sister.     

The boys fell asleep in the car on the way back, the The Man and I drove to a beach and had coffees from a cafe. It really is such a rare treat to get them both asleep together in the daytime.  I put some litter in a bin; they woke up. We bought them chips for lunch. Unfortunately it wasn’t lunchtime, it was nearly 3pm when Nanna was coming round. We got back to see her, A Grand Old Age, sitting on the windowsill in the rain waiting for us.  Er… see http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2009/02/18/the-cuteness-of-piglets/  We made special fried rice for tea. I had a new Le Crueset serving dish for my birthday.  I put the rice in the dish on the centre of the table, place mats laid all round, serving spoons and plates in position.  Son 2 bruised down. “Tea,” he demanded. “Tea. Tea. Tea.” He climbed up on the chair, stood on it, reached over, served himself a great plateful and ate it with his fists.  He’d eaten half a plate before Son 1 came down.  I sat in the highchair and had mine.

Nanna babysat while The Man and I went down the road to the Hotel With The River View. Thank heaven for smokers, and improved outside facilities.  The Hotel WTRV now has a terrace. Plastic plants, and seagulls eating fag butts, but it was sunny, the water was flat and the longest day approaches.  We had a great time.