1.  Them

2.  Vertigo

3.  True Grit

It was Early.  “Mummmeee.  Mummmmeee.”  Son 2 aged 22m. Standing in his cot.  “Boo.” He stunk. Son 1 aged 4y 10m slid out of bed as I picked up Son 2, and followed us into the Double Bedroom.  I lay Son 2 down on the Double Bed and got in. ”That gap is just the right size for me,” pronounced Son 1, squeezing himself between me and Son 2. They buzzed me like gnats.  I took Son 2 out of his sleeping bag; he wriggled off the bed and wandered off. He came back.  Son 1 went to get some toys.  He came back. The Man snored upstairs in The Big Bed. I tried sending them to see him. They came back. I went to the loo. They followed me.  I got up, and changed Son 2’s nappy.    

We are trying to make our five-level, up a cliff, concreted back garden a bit more child-friendly.  It’s lethal at the moment, blessed as we are with the vigorous, fearless and clueless climber that is Son 2. We have a patio table separated from a 20 foot drop onto a concrete yard by a rickety fence. We have flight upon flight of open concrete steps. We have loose flagging. We have rotten trellises. We have gravel, we have crumbling terrace walls. Low maintenance and perfect for the hugely-busy, child-free mostly-out couple we were when we moved here.  The Man pulled out weeds and woody clematis; I tried to keep the boys safe. Every time The Man put the secateurs down, they had them. I tried to clear the debris away from the concrete steps to make them safer; the boys followed me and tried to help.  Left to their own devices they made a snail fizz by banging on its shell with their trowels.     We marched them into the Town.

We went to a children’s craft session at The Art Gallery.  Our Neighbour The Dancer from down the Terrace greeted us. She is a volunteer, we discovered. And an artist. Two of her decorated fairground-style horses had prime exhibition space. The boys made felt hoodies. Cut out, stick on, pipe cleaners, animal prints, stickers.  Son 2 and I made a pig, but he wouldn’t wear it. Son 1 wouldn’t let me suggest what his was. It was like Boo’s monster costume in Monsters Inc. “Hers is purple,” said Son 1. His was blue. Back home we had tea on the patio. Sausage, potatoes and peas.  Further up the cliff, houses back on to us.  There is a bungalow where an ancient man used to live. When he died about five years ago it became a squat.  As we ate, the sound of loud drumming blasted across the air. “When are you going to stop?” shouted Son 1. “We are having our tea outside!  My Mummy is sitting down and having five minutes peace!  This is too loud!”  The Man and I sipped our Sauvignon Blanc.  We made a half-hearted effort to shush him. Next door but one got his lawn mower out underneath them. “When are you going to stop!”  bellowed Son 1. The drumming stopped.

1.  Champagne

2.  Crunch

3.  New Year Parade 

Nanna and Brother did an early babysitting session yesterday, so The Man and I went out.  Champagne cocktails in a Yoof Bar watching people half our age limbering up to celebrate.  Sets of girls, gangs of lads, dressed in… everything.  Strictly Ballroom costumes… Incredible Hulk bodypaint, birds, Sylvester… Son 1 aged 4y 3m will be delighted to know that he’ll still be able to walk around Town dressed as a pirate when he’s grown up.  Many of the boys had black eyes and split noses.  Bound to be rugby. We headed backfor 2230.  Son 1 will probably not want to know that 25 years after leaving home he may still be rushing to get back for the time he told his Mother.  We opened champagne, chatted, said goodbye, and settled down to crisps and Jools Holland.  At midnight we went to sit in the bay window to look at the fireworks across the river.  In next door’s window, the Christmas tree wobbled, and then our Neighbours appeared, also to watch the fireworks.  They waved at us and we waved at them.  Three police officers walked along the pavement outside, so I waved at them.  They waved back.  The Neighbours raised glasses with us as the fireworks went off.

Another slowish start.  The house is full of new toys, so Son 1 watched hours of telly, playing with his Ben 10 Omnitrix, while Son 2 aged 15m took the three sections of the vegetable rack for a walk round the kitchen and hall.  Son 1 joined in, one section on his head as a helmet.  Son 2 copied him and walked into the fridge.  Son 1 was doing his collie-in-a-china-shop thing, so we took them out.   As we went through The Town we did economics and social history.  “Why are the shops shut?”  “Because it’s a holiday.”  “Is Woolworths on holiday?”  “No, Woolworths has closed for good.”  “Why?”  “Because they spent too much money and no-one would give them any more.”  “So can we never go in it again?” “No.”  WAIL. “I like going in Woolworths. I wanted to buy a Ben 10 tee shirt.”  Then we passed the arty cinema. Son 1 took an events booklet from outside.  He opened it at a still from the Baader-Meinhof film, showing two men shooting at a car.  “Who are these people?”  ”Robbers who captured people a long time ago.”  “Did they kill them?”  “Oh no.  Everyone escaped and the robbers were caught and sent to prison.”  “Did all the robbers get caught?”  “Yes.”  “Did they keep their guns?”  “No, the police took those away.”  “What did they do with them?” “They melted them down and made them into tin openers.”  “What’s a tin opener?”  A child of the ring pull age.

In the still-perishing wind, we trailed over to the Other Side of Town.  Five or six children were marching, Von Trapp fashion, along the lines of dark paving criss-crossing The Square.  Son 1 watched longingly.  “Do you want me to ask if you can play with them?” As he considered, a shout went out from a group of adults on the other side, and the children ran off towards them, leaving The Square empty.  Son 1 went and stood on a dark line.   I stood behind him, and marched on the spot.  He giggled, and off we went, marching up and down the lines.  He started to run, I chased him.  We went back and forth. He ran off towards an unlet shopfront, and hugged a swinging street sign while he caught his breath.  Eyes dancing, cheeks glowing, a wide smile of little white teeth, he looked up at me and said “I love you.”

1.  Lifeguards

2.  The Juicy Child

3.  Monster Powers

By The Flume at our local pool there is a notice saying No Jewellery, No Contact Lenses, No Goggles etc.  The Lifeguard who has to stand at the top watching punters going down has his eyebrow pierced with a bar.  One of his colleagues has a hoop through her upper lip.  Another of his colleagues is so young that he’d be allowed on the lifeboat first with the women.  And there was a small round turd on the floor in one of the changing rooms.  I took Son 2 aged 14m to the Babies and Toddlers session and he was great.  He floated along when I swam him, he played in the noodle, he got out (often) and crawled off so I had to get out the pool to get him back.  He splashed.  He watched.  He pointed at the stairs. He tried to climb up the walls.  He lay on my front while I swam backwards.  And then he put his head on my shoulder, eyes still wide and watching.  So we came out, and he was asleep by the time we got home. 

Then I went up with Son 1 aged 4y 1m.  And we played for more than an hour and a half.  He was an alien seahorse.  The noodle was seaweed, until I pretended to eat it up, when he shouted “It’s Meat!” and cackled because Mummy’s a vegetarian.  I was a mermaid and he was a pirate. Again.  I was a  sea turtle.  He was a crocodile.  I was the Enormous Crocodile, and he was a Juicy Child.  We played with surf boards, we bounced in the waves, he climbed out and jumped in.  Towards the end of the time we met one of our Friends and her family - with (of course) a four year old boy. We haven’t seen them since the Birthday Party, so it was good to catch up.

The Man made Toad in the Hole for tea, and Son 2 wanted to play out front.  So the boys and I spent an hour outside.  Son 2 scrunched on the gravel, hauled himself up by the railings and twinkled at the passers-by.  We saw two sets of neighbours,  runners, dogs, and an old lady from the other end of the Terrace out with her New Hip.  Son 1was the Mysterious Lifeguard with Monster Powers, protecting our houses with his fire sticks, which set everything on fire except of noses.  It was noisy, it was elaborate, it involved twigs and dracaena leaves and quite a few stones landing very near me and Son 2.   Son 2 managed his tea, and asked for and ate extra sausages.  It works better when he can’t smell the cooking - we at last avoided Sunday evening melt down.

1.  Birthday Presents 

2.  The Fun Park

3.  The First Straw

Son 2 aged 1 slept through.  He has three tiny white prongs poking through, with a red, swollen bit in the middle of his gum.  Poor little Lambo.   He was up before Son 1.  Son 1 aged 4 today came upstairs first thing and ripped through the family presents: an airport from Nanna, a Scooby Van from Son 2, a sword and some books from us.  Then went to his room and opened his party presents, which were piled under the bed.  I have made a list, but dear God when do I get two sets of thank yous out.  Then downstairs to the drum kit.  He pulled off the pirate paper we’d draped over it and just stormed on for the next presents - a couple which had been left downstairs.  Son 2 loved the drum kit.

We went to the Fun Park.  I’d promised Son 1 a Trip for his birthday, without realising that by the time we’d done Son 2’s birthday, The Town Festival, The Man being away for a week, the Birthday Party and the Big Town Park… we would all be dropping with exhaustion.   Still, a deal is a deal as Shaggy - and now Son 1 - says, so off we trooped.  About an hour away, The Fun Park is cheap (except to get in,) amateur and not very clean.   Farm and small animals, various play rooms, various outdoor attractions and rides.  But it was a lovely day, and we had it almost to ourselves.  Son 1 loved it.  We went on a water slide, we played Scooby Doo in the Haunted House.  We played in the ball pool, we climbed 25m up some rigging (go go go older mums,) we went down a log flume.  I love it when I am his playmate and get bossed about “Come on, Mummy.”  Son 2 was miserable and needed Calpol, but he managed to pat some ponies, play in the ball pool and play in the sand pit. He didn’t eat very much today, but is drinking a lot of milk.  He’s on cow’s milk in the daytime now, he had his last formula yesterday.  Memories to cherish: Son 1’s baby-toothed laughter as we scrambled out of our boat on the water slide; Son 1 driving little electric cars around a tiny circuit - needing to use the accelerator and the steering wheel correctly. Son 1’s blue tongue from a long chewy snake someone bought him for his birthday which he took all day to eat.  Son 2 stretching his hand out for the ponies and goats, and for the ball pool, and crying when we took him off for his lunch instead.  Son 2 carefully dipping his breadstick in his hummous and licking it off.

We got home in time to see Nanna and Elder Sister arriving.  Son 1 had to eat his tea and then we were breaking out a Scooby Doo cake I bought yesterday.  The Nice Neighbours called round with birthday presents for both boys.  We drank bucks fizz and ate cake.  Son 2 hi-jacked Son 1’s Innocent smoothy, and used it to teach himself how to drink through a straw.  It was like watching a monkey learn how to get a  peach down from the top of a cage.  Son 2 recognises the cartons because all the boys on the beach drink them, and he’s mineswept them before, just chewing the straws to get the sweet juice on them. So he knew he wanted the carton.  Then he chewed the straw.  Then he sucked and a bit of liquid shot into his mouth.  Then his little mouth was going nineteen-to-the-dozen as he tried to make it happen again.  Then he made it… again and again…then he cracked it.   We didn’t get the boys to bed till 20 to 9.   

1. Swimming lesson

2. Bird Park

3. Pumpkin seeds

4. The neighbours

I took the children up to Son 1 aged 3 and a half’s swimming lesson while The Man Got On.  I liked watching Son 1, he takes notice half the time, and gets it right about half the times he’s listening.  He was swimming along on his front, a noodle under each arm, kicking his legs merrily, and the teacher turned him over and round, so that he was swimming on his back in the opposite direction.  And then a noodle wobbled and plunged under, and he found something else to look at and he started going round in a circle on his front.   I don’t think he’s learning to swim but he seems to like it.

Then we went to the Bird Park with some friends.  Son 1 loves the Bird Park - it’s got soft play, sand pits, playgrounds, a climb-aboard tractor, birds (unsurprisingly) and animals.  I’ve still got problems with birds in cages, but since having Son 1 I have decided the Bird Park is not so much an affront to the freedom of little hearts that beat and sing, and more a rest-home for clapped-out parrots whose very old owners have died.  Son 2 aged 7m is usually fascinated by everything there, but today was still out-of-sorts.  I think he needed to sleep, and as usual our squeeze-in-all-we-can lifestyle didn’t help him.  Some lovely moments though.  Son 1 and his friend, sitting on the bonnet of the climbaboard tractor, with three much bigger children in the cockpit.  “Go away,” said the Big Ones.  “You’re ruining our game.”  “No,” said the three year olds.  “You’ve got to go.  I’m eight, he’s five and she’s six.”  “Well we’re three.” No sign of movement.  They stared them out and they saw them off.  They collected the carrots dropped at rabbits’ feeding time from the floor and put them on the tractor as their picnic.  Son 1’s friend, barefoot and hardy, ran over the gravel to the Noah’s Ark ride-on machine.  Son 1, barefoot, ooh-ooh ah-ah-ed all the way over.  They made up trolls under bridges, dug tunnels, raced crocodiles and played pirates.

When we got back,  Son 1’s pumpkin seeds, planted 10 days ago, had sprouted.  In fact they seem to grow bigger while we’re watching them.  At this rate we’ll have another squash before we’ve finished off eating the one the seeds came from.  I used to know about gardening, but can’t remember how to sow or grow them.  It’s spring, it must be ok.

We went round to the neighbours’ after tea.  They let out their house for the summer, and live on a boat in the Med.  They leave on Saturday, so we were popping round for a drink and nibbles to say goodbye.  Son 1 did their Scooby Doo puzzle - they have grandchildren and a supply of toys.  Son 2 babbled and twinkled and grabbed and nosed. They are great, and their back garden is immaculate.  Unlike their trashy neighbours’.