1.  Sleeping In My Bed

2.  Banana Cake

3.  The Play Den

Midnight.  A stir in the air which means Son 1 aged 4y 4m is heading upstairs.  Son 2 aged 16m started roaring.  I sat up.  Son 1 crawled into bed behind me.  I waited to see if Son 2 would settle, but he wanted someone to come, and he was doing his shouting-so-angrily-you-can-hear-his-throat-strain thing. “Did you wake Son 2 up?” I asked Son 1. “No.” “Did you peek in his room at all?” “I didn’t go in his room.”  Son 2 was using everything he had, heels upwards, in his yelling.  I went downstairs to him.  The quilt of the bed in his room was turned back.  Son 1 had obviously got in the bed, snugged across unsuccessfully looking for a parent, padded away upstairs… and set his brother off.  By 0130 Son 2 was back in a deep sleep.  I plopped him in the cot, and went next door to sleep in Son 1’s bed.  I was freezing and needed an extra blanket.  Ah.  Son 1’s broken nights have coincided with this cold snap.  We are indeed Terrible Parents.

In the morning I told Son 1 that someone had, indeed, been into Son 2’s bedroom in the night and woken him up.  Son 1 laughed.  “It was me.”  Son 2 wanted food.  I took him downstairs while I made drinks and snacks.  He stood on dining chairs propped up by the worktops.  Direct line of sight to  the tub containing banana cake made by Wonder Nanny on Friday.  “Aahhh,” points Son 2.  I don’t think it’s possible to deflect Son 2 from a food mission once he’s got an idea in his head.  He ate two pieces.  And another piece for breakfast.

Son 1 had an invitation to a joint Nursery party at a Tourist Attraction 30 miles away.  The day was planned.  Son 2’s sleep.  Lunch. In the car and off we go.  Son 2, bunged up with banana cake,  wouldn’t eat an atom of lunch.     We walked into the Tourist Attraction. “You know Mummy, this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” said Son 1, taking in the slides, the soft play, and the Big Uns’ playstuff.   Half the size of the Bird Park play area, with four times as many children.   He sat on the sides, swinging his legs, and trying to get me to ask his Nursery friends to play with him.   He got there in the end.  Son 2 loved it.  Ball pool, play with the air jets.  Slides.  Climbing over the Big Uns’ playstuff. 90 minutes of heaving Son 2 up and down, round and along… sometimes checking on Son 1, sometimes playing with him, and it was time for Party Tea.  I tried to get Son 2 to eat a ham sandwich.  He settled for a chocolate doughnut.  At last I could go and get a cappacino.  The coffee machine was out of order.  Twenty minutes later, an announcement.  The loos were also out of order.  Tea over, more play, and then we rounded up our balloons and headed home, listening to Peter Pan and (one of us) munching cake and eating lollipops all the way.

1.  Ding Dong Bell

2.  Humpty Dumpty

3.  And Jill Came Tumbling After

We went out to a Fondue Dinner last night.  Friends, and Friends of Friends.  A very nice time.  Too much wine.  Back at 0130.  Son 2 aged 16m woke us up at 6am with his skull-splitting, ear-piercing, only-mummy-will-do shrieking.    It was Very Hard.  I took both boys downstairs and got drinks and snack tubs, got everything back upstairs again, and told The Man that as he’d just had 25 minutes’ lying in, I was going back to bed.  I got in Son 1 aged 4y 3m’s bed, and just drowsed.  The Man brought Son 2 down to me at about twenty to nine.  That hour and a quarter extra in bed was A Very Good Thing Indeed.

i took Son 2 to Baby and Toddler swimming, and he loved it.  We bounced, we played Humpty Dumpty, he walked in the pool a bit, he wore his armbands, he swam with me a bit, he floated on his own for a few seconds.  He looked and looked at the other children, lifeguards, safety equipment, marks on the wall - there was nothing he didn’t stare at.  He fell asleep in the car and then slept in his cot for two hours.  He had a great time, but I don’t know that I’ve done him any good.  He had a cold, and he’s really not very well at all tonight.  I took him because I knew it would give him a deep sleep afterwards, I knew he was already tired and I don’t know how else to get him to wind down.  He does have long sleeps with Wonder Nanny, but it’s as if when we’re around it’s just “Mummy and Daddy are here so I’ll stay up, thanks.”

I took Son 1 up to the pool while Son 2 was sleeping. His Wednesday Friend was there, so he was happy.  He wanted to play a game I need goggles for, so I went to the locker and took them out of the bag.  When I got back he was being swept round the pool on his surfboard by the River Run.  I went round with him and he pushed me away “I’m doing it on my OWN.”  After our friends left, we went on the Flume.  Together about 5 times, and then, without warning, instead of waiting for me to sit down and then climbing into my lap, he sat on the hotseat himself and looked up expectantly at the Lifeguard.  A nod, he pushed himself off, and That Was It.  Son 1 goes down the Flume on his own.  7 times or more.  I slid down alone after him.   Pang.