1.  Avoir Fatigue

2.  M’Aider

3.  The Couleurs King

I have been awake since 3am. Ellen MacArthur did five months on five minutes’ sleep every four hours.  Or something. I could so see her off.   I woke up, couldn’t get back to sleep, went downstairs, made a cup of tea, went back upstairs, got my Book Club book and went back down to the Double Bed for a peaceful middle-of-the-night readfest.  A little figure came padding down from the Big Bed. Wordlessly and glassy-eyed, Son 1 aged 5 plonked himself in the Double Bed.  Mrs Smiley’s voice echoed in my head: “How’s his sleeping?”  I switched off the light. “My head is still hurting.” I gave him a slug of Kalpol. He didn’t sleep; I didn’t sleep. He eyebrowed vigorously and clamped himself to me.  After a very very long time, Son 2 aged 2y 1m wailed.

After an hour at The Office, my voice had gone again.  “I’ll go home and work there,” I told a colleague. I didn’t make it. I found if I kept my head down, said nothing and drank lots of hot drinks, I could manage. I did a mad run round the shops at lunchtime.  I have… erm.. burnt Son 1’s tummy by putting neat tea tree oil on his molluscum. It’s made his eczema flare up.  I asked Teenaged Niece what she put on her eczema. “HE 45″ she said. I wasn’t going to take her word for it. I was going to ask the pharmacist. Only all pharmacists in the Big Town take their lunch between 1pm and 2pm.  “When can you guys make it?  OK.  That’s when we’ll shut up shop.”  So. HE 45 it was. And some allergy-for-children medicine.

Back late, and Son 2, the Cooler King, was shut up in his cot in a darkened room, having a raging tantrum.  ”He’s been horrible,” said The Man. ”He wouldn’t eat his tea, he wouldn’t have a bath, and I only just got his teeth done.” I got Son 2 out, and he sat on my knee, quietly panting, his head against me.  I took him into the other bedroom. Son 1 had a French lesson today, and was singing something about quelle couleurs.  The Man and I were baffled by the verse: Hoar, jaune, bleu, vert. We eventually worked out that the problem was our dodgy accents. Our rouge features the same sound as kangaroo.  Son 1’s has a throaty soft French “r” and a “g” that rolls into the “j” of “jaune.” I gave him the anti-allergy medicine. And then read the ingredients. Sugar and alcohol.  Nice.  I really want to give that to my five-year-old.

1.  Lies

2.  Damn Lies

3.  Statistics

Last night I worked late and went to bed very late.   Well towards 1am, I tiptoed upstairs, weightless, soundless, I did not breathe.  The Man rolled over, grumbled and switched off the telly.   I took out my contact lenses.  I peered behind me.  Son 1 had teleported in,  lurching round like a drunk. The Man was in the Big Bed, he wanted to lie down, but “Where’s Mummy?” “In the bathroom.”  Son 1 was still bothered by The Man in the Big Bed.  “When you’re not here, if I wake him up when I come to bed, he settles down in your side watching me while I take off my make up and do my teeth, and then I have a little read in bed, and then we both go to sleep.”  The Man harrumphed and  trogged off to the Blue Room.  Yes yes I know that Son 1 will one day be off with She Who Will Never Be Good Enough For Him and I should be Putting My Eggs In The Man’s Basket (this is going badly wrong) but what the hell. It was the way Son 1 just stood patiently at the bedside waiting for his space to become available… 

So this morning I was matchsticks-under-the-eyelids. Another oh God look at the state of the boys, never mind, Wonder Nanny can do it when she gets here, bye, sesh.  I am doing better though on reading to Son 2.  We did our five books.  Pinocchio, for God’s sake. He insisted.  This is Son 1’s library book, the Disney series that everyone has at least 1 of, somewhere.  I should be reading stuff that is Rooted In Reality.  About washing machines and buggies and looking at leaves.  So. Son 2. Gepetto makes this toy, and the only woman in the story, winged, badly drawn, wearing a pillow case,  makes it come alive, and it goes shopping and gets mugged - twice -  and then gets caged, whereupon Gepetto rescues it and they all live happily ever after.  Son 2 couldn’t give a hoot, and wanted it twice. He’s only really looking at the pictures of the nose getting bigger. “Wee wee,” he said, at the end.  I went all the way downstairs to get his potty. He rejected it, sat on Son 1’s old booster seat, and wee-d in the loo. PSB. “Bye bye Mummy,” he said, as I went off to The Office. 

At bedtime, Son 1 gets the book time. We took out 17 from the library, some for Son 2, but most chosen by him. ”Improving your fishing,” has been a bit of a challenge.  I always put at least one book about another country or culture in the pile. ”And the liberal, with a small ‘l’, cries in front of the TV,” sang Billy Bragg when I was Young. ”Coming Home” went in on the strength of a cover drawing of a black woman in a hijab with a small boy. Oh-Good-Islam-Portrayal-Not-Arab-We’ll-Have-It was the quarter second attention it got as I tossed it in.  Hassan is a Somalian refugee.  Son 1 and I have done Somalia, in answer to the “Mummy, are there any pirates now?” question. “There are some very poor people from a very poor country run by bullies and they steal other people’s boats and ships because they Have Nothing.” “What happens to them?” “President Obama (Most Powerful Man In The World.  In answer to: “Who’s that man on your book?”) sent a big ship and told them to stop. Now darling, let’s clear out Son 2’s old toys and take them to Oxfam.”   Hassan’s Uncle is killed by soldiers who burn his house down. Son 1 wanted it twice. ”Is his Uncle dead?” “What happened to the animals?” “Where are his cousins?” “Will it happen here?”  At this point my inner Nanna broke through and I couldn’t resist. “No. Because we are one of the richest countries in the world, and you are such a lucky little boy, and that is why Daddy and I get cross when you don’t realise - ” Son 1 burst into tears. “I’m scared of the soldiers.”  Gepetto was a woodcarver, I said, and one day he made a puppet. 

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.  Capitulation

2.  Corruption

3.  Celebration

A New Family Rule.  If Little Children Want To Sleep With Their Parents They Can.  Son 1 aged 4y 4m thinks this is good idea.  “Is this because of me?”  “Yes,” I said.  No.  It’s because we had the most wretched night with Son 2 aged 16m.  Plot summary:  he wanted to lie in the big bed with a grown up;  I wanted him to sleep in his cot.    Neither The Man nor I sleep particularly well when we have a child with us.  And we both get grumpy when we don’t sleep.  So when Son 2 stood up and bayed at 2315, I tried to get him back to sleep.  He roared.  He shouted till his voice went hoarse.  He screamed and screeched and shrieked.  He woke Son 1.  He finally stopped at 1am.  i put Son 1 back in his bed.  Made hot chocolate.  And was then worried that something might be wrong with Son 2 so went into his room.  In the early hours he awoke again, and I just popped him into bed with me.  He went straight back to sleep.

We had Horrid Henry again on the way to Nursery.  I am going to retire him.  Too many: “Bor-ring”s and raspberries from Son 1.  I like to think a “You’re terrible parents” was rooted in Horrid Henry, rather than any seriously thought-through conclusion.  So at Ottakars I began the re-education programme.  We now have Peter Pan, Roald Dahl, and Stories For Five Year Olds.   Back from The Office, I walked in as Son 1 had just hit Son 2.  Oh somehow he got his new CDs.  “I hope you choose Peter Pan for us to listen to tomorrow,” I said.  “Which one do you want to hear?”  “Peter Pan,” said Son 1.  Hooray hooray.  We may yet get him back from Horrid Henry.

Reading to Son 1 after bathtime, I tried to get any information at all from him about his day at Nursery.  “Who did you sit with at lunch?”  “Can’t remember.”  “What did you do that was fun?” “Nothing.” ”What was your favourite bit of the day?”  “When Mummy came home.”  He deserved every one of those new CDs.