1.  Someone To Care For

2.  To Be There For

3.  I Have You Two

We slept in till 7am. I heard a wail from Son 2 aged 19m downstairs in his cot at some point… and I woke wearing Son 1 aged 4y 6m like a scarf.  Downstairs they gobbled rice cakes and Philadelphia. Then Son 1 watched Treasure Island, which he’d been given by my Old Friend yesterday.  Son 2 and I read, showered and then we all went up to the Big Bedroom and sorted laundry.   This was a Good Thing, as it can be hard with two under-fives wrecking piles and throwing small socks around.  The secret was to let them help.    They both got very bored and wandered off to unwind loo rolls instead. 

The Wednesday Friends were going to the New Play Centre.  I don’t go there any more, so we went back to the Hotel Pool.  We were joined by another Friend and her Three Year Old. This is the pool too deep for the children to put their feet down anywhere.  Son 1 had a brilliant time, swimming/running or jumping for nearly an hour.  Son 2 loved it too, relaxed in his little baby wetsuit, floating on his armbands, sinking himself by rolling over and then coming up smiling.  Son 1 alternated between the arm bands and the noodle, but was brilliantly confident.  He needs a little more help though with his Awareness Of Other Pool Users scores.   There was a grim lane-counter in a red swimming hat who was unsmiling and uncommunicative about her several near-misses from Son 1’s exhuberant jumping.  I lectured him.  But the New Me also kinda thought… Wet Wednesday in the school holidays, not a good time to pick for training…

The heaviest rainstorm I can remember, machine-gunning into the car roof.  The marvellous Parking Fairy put us right outside the house.  I mis-timed everything, we were out over lunch; I gave the boys chocolate eggs as their after-swim treat.  They were exhausted, sugared-up and hungry.  When we got in at nearly 3pm I gave them a picnic in front of the telly.  Popcorn, sausages, grapes, celery, carrots, peppers and kiwi fruit.  They gorged themselves on popcorn, ate the sausages and grapes, most of the peppers and some of the carrots.  Son 2 was a thug.  He tried to hog all the popcorn, pushing Son 1 away from the bowl. He tipped all the food off the plate onto the floor.  He took pieces of popcorn and threw them down the stairs, laughing madly.  He did a mega poo and I changed him, putting him back in the lounge with just his nappy on while I found him some fresh clothes.  I came back upstairs and he’d taken his nappy off and was running up and down naked, waving it above his head.   I made them a tortilla for tea, my usual guilt-trip of “why am I wasting time cooking when i should be playing with them?” made worse by me thinking they wouldn’t eat because of their picnic.  They wolfed it. We sang “I Have You Two” from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  Then they wolfed jelly. And fromage frais.  Well, Son 1 ate the jelly and fromage frais. Son 2 mixed it together and used it to re-point the high chair.

1.  A Hard Day’s Night

2.  This Will Be The Last Time

3.  You Really Got Me

Son 1 aged 4y 5m was in with me all night.  He’s always allowed the night before The Man comes home.  He is a heat-seeking missile who cannot be stayed from his course.  He is in bed to snug with Mummy, to lie against me and feel my eyebrows.  (Used to do it when he was breastfeeding.  Has never stopped.  Does it when he’s asleep. In my absence anyone’s eyebrows will do.  Also does it on Son 2 aged 18m.)  Son 2 aged 18m slept through, but woke at 6am.  I put his fan on (white noise) and got into the double bed with him.  He dozed.  Then he woke, cried, and wanted his sleeping bag removed.  I took it off.  He slithered out of bed, onto the floor, and off he went on his own.  ”Mummy’s staying in bed.” I said.  “Bye bye,” he said, stopping only to pull the blankets off the chair as he went past, opened the door and went out onto the landing in the dark.  He had the grace to totter back again and stand in the doorway.  “Mama.”  Ha.  Yes I had to get up but I think I still won on goal difference. 

We went to the New Play Centre.  On the positive side  (I Do Not Like The New Play Centre)  Son 1 had a blast, playing with Best Friend, Best Friend’s brother and another boy they know, Son 2 loved it.  He loved the Ball Pools, he loved being pushed around the baby area in a Little Tikes ride on car, he loved walking over the rope bridge, he loved playing with the sponge ball cannons, he loved rolling and climbing and sliding and pushing and just generally Being Big.  Son 1 was hilarious when I told him we weren’t buying lunch there. “Is that your tricking voice?”  No darling, they have again annoyed me and I shan’t be giving them any more money.  How do you explain the concept of a boycott to a four year old who wants sausage and chips.

Back home we had a good time. The boys ate their picnic lunches.  I got out some ham. It was smoked, and I’d bought 2 packets. “Try it, and if you don’t like it I’ll give it to Nanna.”  They wolfed it.  We played with the Wooden Railway.  Son 2 did a poo so big it went up to his neck.  Too much information, sorry.  But there was a big part of a crayon in his nappy.   He wears a one-piece vest.  His nappy tabs are fastened too tight for a crayon that size to fall down.  If something was blocking the tubes, that would account for the sheer volume when it came out.  But if Son 2 had swallowed that crayon he would have choked.  So how did it get there?  

Nanna arrived.  Son 2 wanted to watch The Wiggles again.  I booked tickets for The Wiggles.  Nanna will come.  I made Veggie Mince and tomato sauce.  Son 1 didn’t want the Veggie Mince.  But then ate it all.  A real breakthrough, offering  the possibility that I may be able to eat the same as them.  “Shall we try Daddy on this?” I asked Son 1.  “Daddy won’t eat Veggie Mince,” he said wisely.  The Man came home.  Nanna waved goodbye to Son 2 in the bath.  “Bye Bye,” he said.

1.  Extra Boy

2.  Mummy’s Boy

3.  Best Friends

A Friend was up for An Outing. First suggestion too expensive, second suggestion they’d already done.  Son 1 butted into all the discussions and phone calls.  He wanted to go to the New Play Centre.  I pretended not to hear. (Can’t stand it.)  The Mother of Son 1 aged 4y 4m’s Best Friend rang.  Best Friend had been whinging all morning, driving them mad.  He wanted to see Son 1.  What were we up to?  Could she bring him round and then she’ll have Son 1 overnight next weekend?  The New Play Centre it was.   Son 1 and the other Little Friend played together, Son 2 played in the baby area, the Ball Pool and the Toddler Section.  He rocked and pulled off and climbed and threw and slid and rode.  The Man talked Boats with Little Friend’s father.  Best Friend arrived.  Play. Lunch. Play.

Best Friend came back to the house, and hooray hooray, Son 1’s new Scooby Doo DVD had arrived.  That was them sorted.  I put Son 2 to bed.  Nappy change, in his sleeping bag, and then I put him in his cot. “I’m just going to do the window, and then I’ll come back and Son 2 and Mummy will have a sleep on the bed.”  For the first time he sat burbling instead of screaming as I pulled down the blind and put the blanket up. (Stuffed along the top of the roller and draped down the sides.  Son 2 does not sleep if there is Any Light At All.)  We snugged down together on the bed.  He hugged and held and scrunched his fists in my hair… and pressed his head against my cheek and clung.  And he’s lovely and cuddly, and we miss each other and I’ve decided.  When I’m off, he goes to sleep in the daytime by lying next to me.

Son 1 and Best Friend were having an elaborate game involving the Scooby Doo monsters, the Scooby Friends, all Son 1’s pirates, Captain Hook’s ship, the Lost Boys raft, the Woollies Pirate ship, the Tower of Doom and the ELC monsters.  Captain Hook was sitting in the front of the Mystery Machine with Shaggy and Scooby.   The DVD finished and the pirates paraded around the house.  They were warned off upstairs, but a jam on the toy keyboard woke Son 2.  I took him in the lounge and they melted away to Son 1’s bedroom.  Best Friend’s Mother came to collect him. I heard her ask Son 1: “Would you like to come and stay with Best Friend next weekend?”  “Will Mummy and Daddy be there?”  he replied.  Bit of work to do on that one, then.  At bedtime, when I left Son 2 in his cot, he screamed Blue Murder.

1.  Photos

2.  Parties

3.  Play

A party invitation today at the New Play Centre.  We tried it last Wednesday.  It didn’t make The Blog because only Good Things get in.  Fluid start time, morning sunlight in our East-facing house, so I put the boys in their Santa suits to take some pictures.  They were playing with the Treasure Chest, which I’d filled with chocolate coins on Christmas Eve.  Son 1aged 4y 3m hadn’t been near it because the Christmas Tree was in the way.  The Tree’s now gone, the Treasure Chest came out and Son 1 Couldn’t Believe His Eyes.  Or his luck.  “Can I eat them?” “If I get some nice pictures.”  He tried, he really tried.  I possibly got a couple of good ones… although the hats didn’t stay on.  And neither did Son 1’s belt.  But Son 2 aged 15m could have cuted for Britain.  That’s it now for his Santa suit.  Pang.

Last week the New Play Centre was crowded, chaotic, understaffed, with greasy spoon food (ONLY FOOD PURCHASED HERE MAY BE CONSUMED ON THE PREMISES) served after ridiculous waits.  Marked with my Never Again biro.  But a close friend is 3, so I said nothing, packed raisins, rice cakes and a large pack of Useby Jan 7 cocktail sausages, and along we toddled.  It was fine this time round, and I’m glad we went back because both Son 1 and Son 2 had such a brilliant time.  Their rope walk is a bit wider than The Bird Park’s… and Son 2’s absolute determination to get across it on his own was fantastic.  All He Cared About In The World.  We were five small boys and a little girl.  We all played in the baby area, we played with cannons firing foam balls, we played on the slides and ball pool, we climbed up, round, under and along.  We ate cake and the sausages were wolfed.

Son 2 was floppy with fatigue.  In the car, I told Son 1 that we couldn’t go to a Wednesday Friend’s house because we were all too tired.  Protest.  All right.  We would go for a Cup Of Tea. “And a little play?”  We went for a cup of tea and we were there two hours.  Son 1 disappeared with his friend and friend’s younger brother.  Another mother arrived with a seven month old girl.  Son 2 was asleep in the Big Pram, but the boys soon woke him up, and he tottered up and down the kitchen raiding the fruit bowl.   Back home I took more photos.  Son 1 posed hard.  I gave him a chocolate coin.  In the bedroom he put his arms round me and said “Thank you Mummy for my lovely day.”  I told The Man about it, fondly.  He didn’t look up from the telly.  “And who do you think put him up to saying that?”