1.    Graffiti

2.    White Noise

3.    Performance

Son 2 aged 22m has scribbled in biro on my lovely leather chair again. See here for previous episode. http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2009/04/27/wheres-spot/  He was in the lounge with Son 1 aged 4y 10m, watching telly while I did my hair and make up.  A Wednesday Mum rang, Son 1 answered and brought the phone upstairs. I chatted - her car’s broken down so they couldn’t come on today’s planned outing - and went downstairs with the phone and Son 1.  “Dor!” said Son 2, happily, pointed at his artwork.  Black. Circles. He’s pressed hard, And he’s done crosses on the arms as well. I was livid. I held him at arm’s length, yelling at him for being naughty, took him upstairs, dumped him in his cot and closed the door.  I went downstairs, out of breath from stomping up too quickly.   I sorted the washing out. I put the washing on.  I heard a high-pitched wail from upstairs. I cleared up a bit in the kitchen.  After 5 full minutes (I never leave him more than two in case he climbs out. But I was cross) I went back upstairs and opened the door.  He was standing in the corner of the cot, his arms folded.  He smiled. “Dat! Up Dere!”  He pointed out of the window.  If you’re bored, standing in the corner of the cot you can see the squatters’ bungalow up the cliff behind us (see here for previous episode http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2009/07/25/cliffhanger/) On the doorstep, in front of their red door, sat a black cat.  He says he won’t draw on Mummy’s chair again.  And Mummy says she won’t leave a 22m old alone in a room with a leather chair and a biro.

We were going out to a Play Day in the Big Town.   I packed up the car, including the boys, and remembered my phone. On my way back I saw a neighbour, someone we see to talk to about twice a week. She had some time off last week, and she and her long-term partner had a low-key wedding. I was thrilled , and told Son 1 as soon as I got back in “I just saw Neighbour!  She and Partner have got married!” “I knew that already,” said Son matter-of-factly. “How did you know that?” “I saw her with Wonder Nanny and she told us then.” “But it’s really exciting! Why didn’t you tell me?” “I forgot.”  Oh God.  He’s such a bloke already.

All the Play Day parking was gone by the time we got there, and men in yellow jackets were telling people to drive three miles out of Town and get the Park And Ride.  I parked at The Office, well over half a mile away.  Son 2 wanted to get out of the Big Pram, Son 1 wanted to get in. But we were seeing some friends we hadn’t seen for ages http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2008/12/03/the-christmas-tree/ so I wanted to hurry.  The Play Day was in the Town Park.  Or the Town Paddy Field, as it should now be known after countless days of rain.  The ground was sodden and sopping. We found our friends. The big boys were shy of each other at first, Son 2 just wanted to get out of the Pram, the 2 year old wasn’t really up for a play.   We found some bouncy castles and they bounced. They ran off to the playground area and played on balances and slides. Son loved the sea saw. We had lunch and headed to the Marquee to see acrobats we’d last seen at The Freezing Fiesta http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2009/05/26/the-freezing-fiesta/.  They were very good.  Handstands, acrobatics, diablos, girls with sashes doing aerial ballet up in the roof.  A band, a clown, and fire-jugglers.  The fire-jugglers let great balls of flame roar upwards. The clown, casually juggling three burning sticks on the stage where the band were playing yelled: “No! Not in the tent!” at the fire-eaters.  Last time we saw them, he cleared children from underneath the aerial ballerinas half way through their act.  I do like their Health And Safety style.   We went to the playground, the Big Boys played on the roundabout. “And me! And me!” cried Son 2.  There was a posse of bigger children on the roundabout. “Can he go in the middle?” I asked them. “Slowly, slowly, spin it slowly” they hissed to each other.  “Jack! Mind that baby!” barked a father from the bus shelter. “It’s ok,” I called back. “They’re being very good.”  Son 2 was spun slowly.  I took him out. He cried and reached back for it.  “Can we sit on the outside and I’ll spin it?” I asked the posse.  They assented.  I span us round and round. I took him off when I was dizzy.  The posse piled back on and whizzed it round like a drill bit.  We bought cold drinks, and went back to the tents. There was a circus workshop on. Son 1 and his friend span sticks round and round like majorettes. Son 2 was fascinated by a diablo.  He held the sticks, I helped him get it on the string… he tried to throw it off.  Guess what I used to call him in his reflux days.

1.  Jamming Till The Break Of Dawn

2.  Hotter Than July

3.  Rhythms In The Park

Too Darn Hot. The Man padded up and down the stairs in the night, a great, uncomfortable bear with a sore back, sore ankle and a bad case of overheating. Son 1 aged 4y 9m arrived in The Big Bed at 3am. “My room is too hot.”  His room was too hot. I’d closed the door to shut out the light to try to keep the little beggar in bed first thing in the morning.  I heard Son 2 aged 21m roaring “Mummeee!” The Man’s in there, I thought, he can get him up. Then grizzling: “I’s dhuk!” “I’s dhuk!” Oh God, I thought, scrabbling up. Where’s he got himself stuck… has he fallen in his cot… is he ok… He was in the Double Bed. The Man had him in a cuddled half-Nelson to keep stop him snaking off in his sleeping bag. “Dhuk!” “Dhuk!”  

We went to the Rockpool Beach to meet a Wednesday Mother and her three and a half year old.  Incredibly hot.  The tide was on its way in, so we only had a strip of rock and sand… which we more or less filled with two pushchairs and a beach mat.  Son 2 played with water, Son 1 was crotchety, I looked for cowries and found three.      The Wednesday Mum has a spirited child, and is enjoying my new childcare book,  “Honey I Wrecked The Kids,” so much she plans to get her own.  Drop The Rope is our new motto (for when you are in a tug-of-war power struggle with a child…) 

Son 1’s Nursery was holding a Pirate Afternoon, and he wanted to go. So. We went for ice creams, stopped off at The House for his Captain Hook costume, and drove over to The Big Town.  We dropped him off and Son 2 and I went to play in The Park. I had visions of us having Wonder Nanny-style hours of play together.  He wanted to watch teenagers playing tennis.  He grasped the principles at once, saying loud ”Uh-oh”s every time they fluffed a shot or hit the net.  He picked up feathers (Feh Feh,) pointed at dogs, had a little swing and played on the slide ladder. He wouldn’t go on the slide. “Hot.” “It isn’t hot darling, feel it.” Wouldn’t touch it. “Hot.”  Clearly a hot slide issue on another day, at another playground. I had some iced water in a flask and I poured him some.  Not interested in the water. Very interested in pressing the buttons on the top of the flask and pouring it out. Two hours later we picked up an exhausted Son 1 and went home.  The boys watched Ice Age 2 while The Man and I made stir fry.  “Mummy!” called Son 1. “Son 2’s drawing on your chair.” I sprang up the stairs. “What with?” “Pen.” Does anyone know how to get biro out of leather?   They came down for tea.  I’d cleaned the kitchen floor in the morning before we left.  Son 2 ate his rice with his fingers. He got one grain in his mouth for every 17 he dropped on the floor.    AFter, they played in the back yard. Son 2 took off the drain covers and dropped balls down the pipe. When they were finally asleep, I went for a hot, humid run.

1.  Spot The Difference

2.  Spot The Dog

3.  Hitting The Spot

I have a Lovely Chair.  Brown leather, lilo-like back, big round arms, and a matching stool.  It was chosen, way BC, after a lot of research, from John Lewis, Oxford Street.  Flipping through the big leather swatches on the furniture floor with the helpful salesman.  Ordered.  Made for us. Delivered.   The Man envies me my Lovely Chair, and wants to get another.  Wiped out by our gold-plated childcare, we never will.   This morning I left Son 1 aged 4y 7m and Son 2 aged 19m watching The Wiggles while I showered,  dressed, and did my hair and make up.  I was nearly finished, when a voice bellowed “Mummy!  Son 2’s done a wee!”  Son 2, who is seriously and sickenly spotty,  had removed his trousers and nappy, and was sitting bare-bottomed on my Lovely Chair, watching telly.  In a deep lake of wee.   The leather in the Lovely Chair is so good that none of it had soaked away.  So when I moved the cushion it all ran and spilled.    

Son 2’s spots are just awful.  There are hundreds of them.  I had to go to The Office, and rang home at lunchtime.  He was fine, said Wonder Nanny, who’d taken him out to her Mum’s to play with the cats. I picked up Son 1 so late I barely made it there before closedown.  “Did I stay till the end for a special treat?” he asked.  We were back embarrassingly late.  “Son’s had a really good day,” said Wonder Nanny. “No scratching, and laughing all day long.”  She left. Son 2 burst into tears and scratched his ears off.  A toy dalmatian pup, free with the Disney film, has emerged from the toy pile on its own. Son 1 played with it. We hunted out its mate. I took off Son 2’s trousers to change him, but he escaped and waddled, bare-legged into the hall. ”Son 2! I need to change that pooey nappy!”  The nappy landed on the changing mat with a heavy splat.  He really is getting good at taking his nappy off.  And he already knew how to throw.  

His groin is horrible, with blisters on his willy and in all his little baby creases.  They didn’t seem to bother him till I slathered them in calamine lotion and then he cried real tears.  We went upstairs and did Where’s Spot as one of our books.  I put a ton of bicarb in the bath, on the advice of a colleague from The Office.  Poor Son 2.  Spots all over his back with hardly any bare skin in between.  All over his front.  In his hair, in his ears, behind his ears. Poor miserable little sausage.  He cried and cried when I got him out of the bath, objected loudly  to the calamine and was then worn out and inconsolable.  Even though I was incredibly late getting them to bed, I was relaxed and patient all the way through.  Possibly linked to my swapping my usual bathtime cup of tea for a very large glass of Sauvignon Blanc.  A Marvellous Mummy Am I.