1.  Swimming Beauties

2.  Swimming Babies

3.  Swimming Boys

A Grim night.  Son 2 aged 17m woke hollering at 0030, and I went to him, switched his fan on (white noise) and helped him back to sleep.  I hadn’t got back to sleep when Son 1 aged 4y 5m woke up, and I went in with him.  When he went back to sleep I went in the double bed in Son 2’s room. I was so wrecked when he woke up that I tried to get him back to sleep.  He refused.  Needed new nappy.  Son 1 arrived.  No chance of getting back to bed.  Looking out at the river while I changed Son 2 I saw 10 swans, seven swimming in a long line, three stragglers bringing up the rear.   A record for the river. Son 1 said something about  seeing a long line of swans a few days ago.

Son 2 was again, uncontainable this morning.  Climbing, pulling things out of drawers, demanding mobile phones and the fancy ear thermometer.  He wriggled down from the bed while I was reading to him and marched off  to the bathroom, patting the taps, tugging at his pyjama top “A-ma.  A-ma.”  He always comes in the shower with me, but I’d already decided we were going to Baby swimming.  He was desperate to get in the pool, swam on the noodle with me, but really wanted to wander off on the tiles without me.  I let him the first time.  Skid. Bang.  Wah.  Huge bump on his head.  Split lip open again.  Blood everywhere.  I mopped him up and we went back in.  A bit more swimming, but then he wanted to get out.  He was asleep in the car seat when we got back to the house, and stayed asleep while I took his coat and shoes off, put him in his sleeping bag and put him in his cot.  

I went back to the Pool with Son 1. Best Friend and his brother were there with their parents.  And a colleague of mine from The Office with his three boys.  And the two boys nannied by Wonder Nanny’s friend.  And Lifestyle Guru Hairdresser and her two boys.  Son 1 played with Best Friend in the spa pools and the main pool.  He went down the Flume twice, me following behind him. Best Friend left. Son 1 played, I followed.  Lovely Chair (I sit on the noodle and he pulls it away; I pretend I don’t know who did it,) Terrible Weather (we sit under surf boards under the big fountain and the water hammers on top,) Killer Whales and Crocodiles.  Back at the house Son 2 had only just woken up and was having lunch.  Afterwards Son 1 made a picture of peacock with the feathers we found on Tuesday.  I was thinking eco-material collage.  Son 1 did his own thing and wouldn’t accept parental guidance.  It was roadkill.

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.