1.  Starting Slowly

2.  Finishing Fast

3.  Dropping Marks

Son 2 aged 21m, rattling around downstairs before 7am, while I drank coffee to wake me up and got together drinks and snacks.  I took his night-time nappy off to change it. “Wee wee,” he said. “Do you want to do a wee?” “Yes,” he said, and toddled off to the potty. He sat on it. “No,” he said, getting up.  knowing Son 2 to be a child who can wee on the bathroom carpet whenever he feels like it, I said “Oh go on Son 2, do a wee on the potty and I’ll give you a biscuit.”  Up he sprang, the potty forgotten. “Bisbik.  Bisbik.”  A heat-seeking missile, following me, his course unswerving “Bisbik. Bisbik.”  We haven’t got any, so I went upstairs to hunt in my briefcase, which is where I put the free ones you get sometimes in coffee shops. He burst into tears thinking he wasn’t going to get one. ”Bisbik.”  

Son 1 aged 4y 9m has been in Nursery since a few days before he was six months old.  When I first left him he was a babe in arms, with no hair and huge blue eyes.  Today was his last day in Nursery, a scruffy schoolboy in shorts, falling down socks, floppy hair, and dancing eyes.  He has the summer off and then he’s in school. I feel like I’m on some mad express train racing past these milestones so fast I can hardly see them go.  Surely it’s only a minute since he left the Day Nursery for this one. http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2008/09/01/last-day/ We have Three Things to celebrate now: Son 1 leaving Nursery, Son 1 getting a Good School Report, and Son 1 saving my big leather chair from Son 2 aged 21m (the biro still hasn’t come off.)

Nobody told me you have to give the teachers and teaching assistants presents on the last day of term. It was like a wedding in there. A table set aside for the floral arrangements, carefully wrapped presents and pretty carrier bags. All the little children conveying in their gifts. Except one. We had a card which Son 1 made for Miss Lovely before we set out.  How do people find out this stuff? I’ve spent all week checking and checking again that the other children weren’t going to turn up in their own clothes today… and then they all sneak the present thing in.  I rang Wonder Nanny to beg her to sort it. ”Oh yes, when I was a Nursery Nurse we were always getting presents.”

1.  Off Colour

2.  Off Day

3.  Off Switch

The Man left ridiculously early on a Business Trip.  I was up at 6am, to tidy up, get the lunches, sort out the clothes, chop chop busy busy work work bang bang. The boys slept and slept.  Oh for them to lie in their comas on a day when I can sleep in as well. I showered and did my hair and make up. Still no sign of life.  I woke Son 2 aged 21 m and did his reading with him.  I woke Son 1 aged 4y 8m. He flopped on to the double bed in Son 2’s room.  Son 1 has a cough, his throat sounds sore and he was clearly exhausted. Wonder Nanny arrived and we got him in his uniform. We said our goodbyes and off I drove. I looked at him in the rearview mirror. He was flopped in his car seat, his head propped by the side rest, his eyes glazed and staring.  I spun round and took him home. 

I too am blatted by the lurgy, and had a wretched day at The Office.  Being positive, I saw a colleague on maternity leave who’s returned one of Son 1’s potties for Son 2 to try.  But throughout the day I got more fluey, and I really shouldn’t be driving.  Just little things go, like my ability to judge speed and distance. After work I took about 4 goes to reverse park the car outside the house. I looked up and Wonder Nanny, Son 1 and Son 2 were sitting in the window clapping and laughing. Wonder Nanny said they’d been fine, they’d both had a sleep, she’d kept them calpol-d up and they’d had a quiet day. She left. 

And they sprouted horns.  I was feeling dog rough.  i put Son 2 in his cot, sang him his lullabies, did my usual Night Night with my hand on him, left to go into Son 1 and hell was unleashed. He cried and screamed. “Mummeee! Mummmmeee! Mummmeee!” It went on and on and on. One of those Oh-God-I-Should-Have-Gone-To-Him-Earlier-But-I-Can’t-Now-Because-He’ll-Just-Scream-Forever-Next-Time horrors.  All through Son 1’s stories. When it finally stopped, I tiptoed in to check him. And he was still awake, lying exhausted on the pillow. As soon as he saw me he started again. I gave him milk, held him, put him down, stroked him, kissed him, said Good Night and left. “Mummmeeee!”  I got down from Son 1 at 20 to 8.  By 8 he was already downstairs again, crawling around under the washing.  “Come child, you have delighted us enough,” I said, serenely.  All right then.  Cold-ridden, tired, pissed off, I snapped. “Bugger off Son 1, this is Mummy Time.” He burst into tears and scampered upstairs. I ate, worked and rang a colleague from The Office. And again, down came a little ghostie. ”I couldn’t hear you and I was worried sick about you.” I put a fleece on him, gave him a hot chocolate and let him sit there and watch the mundanity of my late evening world of housework.  “Can I wee in the potty?” he asked.  “No,” I said, 17 times. “Why?” “Because I can’t be bothered to clean it out.”  He went for a wee. He did it in the potty. He tried to empty it himself.  I cleared up the wee from the loo seat, the side of the loo, the loo floor and washed the potty out.