1.  Darkest Hour 

2.  A Kind Of Blue

3.  White Teeth

Son 2 aged 17m started crying. I looked at the clock. Just before 6am.  It wasn’t really crying.  It was shouting.  Loud, intermittent pre-vocal blasts.  Getting louder and louder. Standing up in his cot, hands hooked over the rail.  I got him up, changed his nappy and gave him a drink of water.  We got past Son 1 aged 4y 5m’s bedroom without waking him and went downstairs to get the drinks and snacks.  It was 5am.  On the positive side, we didn’t have a rush to get to Nursery.  

Nursery.  All the Nursery and Reception children were in their own clothes, in their favourite colours.  All except one.  How do the other Mothers know this?  Every other little child except Son 1, decked out in civvies.  “Oh Navy’s a lovely colour, it’s a kind of blue,” sang out the class teacher as we arrived.  I simply do not know where the communication loop is.  There is a tiny book of dates they hand out at the start of each term.  But that just gets sucked into our Paperwork Vortex where it is probably still spinning, weightless.  They send letters about Parents’ Evenings, and class photos.  Nope. Genuinely baffled.  I picked Son 1 up early for a dentist’s appointment.  The children were clustering for photos in their various colour groups.  The reds were being taken as I arrived.  The blues were rounded up.  1 sent Son 1 over, and he sat cross-legged in the middle of the front row. As the lady said.  Navy’s a kind of blue.

The Dentist was a Good Thing.  I’d pictured the Dentist staring into Son 1’s gaping mouth and spotting craters bombed out by raisins, chocolate, fruit juice and bedtime milk.  Ting ting ting with his little metal proddy thing.  “They’re fine Son 1, what a good boy, would you like a sticker?”  He did me, I was also fine.  The hygienist had a space, did I want go down now?  Yes I did.  Unfortunately poor Son1, who’d already waited for the Dentist for 25 toyless minutes, had reached his limits. Prone in the Big Chair, goggles on, bib on, mouth full of cutlery and teeth getting sandblasted, dug out and polished, I had Son 1 crawling on top of me and lying with his head on my tummy.  “Does it hurt?” he asked. No, said the hygienist, as I couldn’t speak.  At bedtime I said “Were you frightened Mummy was getting hurt?” He nodded sadly.  So I gave him a flash of my sparkling new smile.