1.  Blood

2.  Sweat

3.  Tears

Son 1 aged 4y 9m woke drowsily last night at midnight when I went to give him a goodnight kiss, and then followed me up to the Big Bed.  This morning I woke up and gazed across at his cherubic sleeping features… his long eyelashes still on his cheeks… masses of dried blood in his nostrils and on his lip and chin… and a great, dried stain of blood circled out from his nose on the changed-on-Sunday  sheet. He clearly still had bloody snot/snotty blood up his nose just from the sound his breathing was making, but I had Son 2 aged 22m yelling “Mummeeee” from downstairs so I just left him.  Does anyone know anything about  nosebleeds?  I think I’ll give him one more before I take him to the doctor.

All did not go to plan today.  Massively tired after yesterday’s excursion.  The car was booked in for an MOT and service. I turned the house upside down looking for my driving licence for the courtesy car. In the end I rang the garage: “Oh just come over, we’ll ring the DVLA.”  I did though remember to take my running kit to The Office. I’ve been getting good at going out again, and I’ve been enjoying it, and I didn’t want to let my fitness drop while The Man is away. Which means running at lunchtime. So, at 1330, I changed into bras, tee-shirt, shorts, socks… and then realised I had two left running shoes.  One from my old pair - which I’d used in the garden at the weekend - and one from the new pair. 

I worked like the clappers all afternoon so I could finish in time to collect the car before the garage shut, and let Wonder Nanny go home at her normal time.  At just the right moment to go there was a torrential rainstorm. Great cracks of thunder, whiteout lightning, hoofing it down. I waited and waited and waited. The sky was black, the air was dark, the traffic had stopped and there was water pooling and swirling in the car park.  I went for it.  It was 200 yards to my car.  I could not have got more wet if someone had stood emptying skiploads of water over me.  I took off my three-inch heels in the car and tipped out the water on the ground outside.  The rain was bouncing off the puddles like ricocheting bullets.  My mac was soaked, my skirt was soaked, my shirt was soaked.  My hair looked like I’d just come up from a dive.  The storm passed as I drove to the garage. As soon as I got out of the car there was another downpour.  I am, I suppose, lucky in many other ways.

1.  First Night Self-Soothing

2.  First Day Back

3.  First Knights Kaput

The boys slept ok, I didn’t.  Son 2 aged 17m woke three times before midnight.  The first time I helped him back to sleep, and put his fan on.  The other two we left him, and he didn’t cry for very long before going back to sleep on his own.  That was a Fantastic Thing, from a child who has months and months of evidence that if he just STANDS IN HIS COT AND SHOUTS VERY LOUDLY FOR LONG ENOUGH HIS MOTHER WILL COME.  Son 1 aged 4y 5m woke crying after time 3, and I went into bed with him.  I did get back in the Big Bed with The Man eventually, but it felt like I was up a long time.

Back to School.  We left on time and had a relatively painless trip to Nursery.  Back to The Office, which was also ok.  The Colleague we saw at the Swimming Pool yesterday asked about Son 2’s lip.  And I confessed to something I left out of the blog yesterday.  In the Pool, after he’d fallen over and split his lip open for the fourth time since his accident, I was trying to stuff the blood back up Son 2’s nose so the lifeguards wouldn’t see I had a bleeding baby in the water.  I had already paid £2.80 and didn’t want to get out so soon. This parenting technique is apparently not yet in the manuals. 

The Man is off on another Business Trip.  I picked Son 1 up late, hey ho, and tried to make up the half an hour we needed to get back for Wonder Nanny’s leaving time.   Temporary traffic lights in Next Town.  No chance.  When we got in Son 1 had just woken and was crying… Son 2 demanded to be picked up.  Son 1 was clinging on one arm, so Wonder Nanny put Son 2 on the other.  He reached and cuddled Son 1.  Twice.  It was lovely.  Part of the reason Son 1 was crying was he’d lost his new Dragon Fly Gormiti at Nursery.  I gave him another one, A Lord Of The Air.  Situation sort of saved, although Son 1 did love the Dragon Fly.  He took them upstairs to play with at bathtime.  Son 2 picked up Magmion, Lord of the Lava,  ran with it and left it on the bathroom floor.  And I trod on it and broke the tail off.  Situation … er… AFU.

1. Beach Babies
2. He Be Bees
3. Oopsies
The Beach and The Garden. I asked Son 1 aged 4y 2m to keep Son 2 aged 15 out of the way while I took the Big Pram through the kitchen. He led him by the hand to the door. A little figure in a dark blue parkha, holding hands with a fat round anorak half his size, tottering ahead of the Pram. So sweet. Fantastic weather, blue skies, clear air, no wind, crisp and cold. Except on the beach, where Son 1 was running around in his sweatshirt and I took my jacket off. Son 2 walked a bit and played a bit, and then insisted on eating his way through the lunch box.

One of the Wednesday Mums has married in secret. At Halloween. I am absurdly pleased. Hardly anyone we know is married. although Wonder Nanny has just got engaged. Wednesday Mum says it was a necessity - like going for a smear. She asked the Registry Office if she and her partner could have a Civil Partnership, but apparently not. On the way back to the car there were about 20 bees on the flowering Hebes in front of a hotel. Honey Bees and Bumble Bees. Whoops there go the ice caps.

Back home Son 2 fell flat on his face. Nosebleed. Ibuprofen. I sat with the howling child on my knee, dose of ibuprofen in a hovering teaspoon, waiting for breath to be drawn so I could pop it in his mouth. A great globule of blood landed in the teaspoon, turning the cloudy white liquid red. Nice. I put Son 2 to bed and Son 1 and I watched Shrek 2. Then we played with the balloons we blew up for Wonder Nanny’s birthday. They were weasels. They had to be captured, fought, rounded up, thrown downstairs and chased. Son 1 barked orders; I obeyed. Nanna arrived. She too had to obey. I got Son 2 up. He burst a balloon with his toe nail. Mmmm. A little sign that Mummy’s been skiving one of her jobs again.

1.  A lie-in

2. Flesh and blood

3. Captain Hook

The good news is I got a lie in this morning because Son 2 aged 11m didn’t wake up till 8am.   However.  He slept in because he was up for HOURS.  He’s got Son 1 aged 3y 11m’s cough.  He doesn’t seem to have the fever, but he’s still very uncomfortable. I wish I could be a bit more forgiving at 4am when I’ve been up since 6am the previous day.  But I kissed him, dumped in his cot, said bye bye, closed the door so I couldn’t hear the ROOAARR and went downstairs.  I made a cup of tea, wrote some birthday cards, copied out Son 1’s New Nursery dates onto the calendar, hung out some washing, drank my tea, went back upstairs… And he’d stopped crying and gone to sleep.  

I fed Son 2 while Son 1 hopped up and down, trying to cuddle his brother, trying to get on my knee, trying to do anything to get attention.  “Why don’t you tell daddy not to empty the dishwasher till he’s brought my coffee up?”  I suggested, helpfully, thinking that would send him padding down 2 flights of stairs.  Son 1 walked to the top of Flight 2.  “DADDEEE. DON’T EMPTY THE DISHWASHER.”  Then there were little sorry-for-himself whining noises from the landing.  Back in he hopped, blood all over his hands, streaming from his nose.  Are there any other children who give themselves really bad nosebleeds by shouting?  It’s his second one in four days, and the other one was caused by a high-pitched shriek.  I suppose I should be grateful he hasn’t shattered any glassware yet.

My ebay bid was a flop, because after I got outbid, I couldn’t work out how to top the higher bid that kept appearing.  I have consulted a Young Thing at The Office who explained what I needed to do.  (”It’s easy.  My husband and I went on a diving holiday last year from the money we made on eBay.”)  Anyway.  The object of my heart’s desire was a Captain Hook outfit, aged 3- 4.  I ordered it full price on Sunday and it arrived today.  I had to let Son 1 try it on to … see if it fits.  He looked fantastic, and he was just so happy.  Bouncing on the bed in it, looking in the mirror.  “Ha-harr.  Give me the treasure lady.”  I gave Son 2 a toy sword, and he gave his huge grin and held it out to touch Son 1’s.  And then whacked me round the head with it, laughing.  He has spent his entire infancy watching Son 1 fencing using swords, sticks, dracaena leaves, wrapping-paper middles, lolly sticks, pencils… So of course he knew exactly what to do when he finally got a toy sword in his little baby fist…     

1. Going Up

2. Lying down

3. Falling out

Son 2 aged 11m can climb the stairs.  We only had two stair gates for Son 1 aged 3y 11m.  One on the top landing, to stop him crawling towards the top of Flight 2… and one in the lounge doorway, to stop him crawling to the top of Flight 1.  It never, in his entire babyhood, occurred to him to leave the kitchen/diner and climb upwards.  I left Son 2 playing by the dining table, went outback to the washing machine and heard gentle Thump, gentle Thump, gentle Thump.  Son 2, a third of  the way up the stairs.  I chased after him.  He laughed and laughed and tried to go faster.   On the landing, he stuck his face between the stair rods and laughed and laughed.  Before heading up for Flight 2.  

Son 1 is still ill.  Face bright, breathing thick, hot hot hot, lying down whenever possible.  We Calpol-ed and ibuprofen-ed him all day.  He just wanted his Mummy.  Which is charming.  But we had been up all night, and he just wanted me to watch telly with him.  I watched the whole Cat In the Hat DVD with him.  And he watched even more.  Breaking off only to lie at the top of Flight 2, cheering on Son 2 as he came gentle-Thump, gentle-Thump with his smile-the-size-of-a-grapefruit up to see him.

Teatime was a glorious opportunity to improve.  (There are no parenting failures on this blog.)  Two boys, whining and whingeing.  They had salmon - which was a huge hit when The Man was away, and neither would eat it.  Son 2 was just crying for me.  Son 1 was crying for his trifle.   At one point they were both doing high-pitched shrieks.  So I … er… did one too.  It scared the life out of Son 2, and made Son 1 shriek so loud that he had the nose bleed from hell.  Great stringy-jelly splats of it.  I suspect it was snot, coloured red, rather than burst blood-vessels hanging out of his nostrils.  Anyway.  It filled two hankies, led to a bit of creative conflict between The Man and I over whether you lean them forward or back, and stopped the noise.