1.  Looking

2.  Listening

3.  Learning

Hell fire it was hard this morning.  Son 1aged 5y 1m has needed navy blue swimming trunks since term started.  Here we are after our three week half term, with his baggy white Monsoon shorts still damp and packed somewhere in the suitcases.  I was in Asda at 9pm last night pushing a trolley round George looking for trunks. I asked an assistant. They are, apparently, seasonal items. They come in to the store in Spring and go in the Sale in July. And that’s it.  My fallback plan was a pair of  navy and red Aged 3 swimming boxers I’d found in a bag of hand-me-downs before we went away.  But what had I done with them.  Wonder Nanny had also been sorting clothes. She’d taken my random pile and put the clothing away in the most logical place. Which was where I found them.  This was a Good Thing.  Son 2 aged 2y 1m cried and clung, but Son 1 got to School and I got to The Office on time. 

At The Office a colleague had done something so Useful and Important for me that my first morning  back was a breeze. I took her out to lunch to say thank you, blasting holes in my Holiday Resolutions of watching my spending and my eating.  I managed to offload a great pile of Nachos on to her plate in revenge.  In the afternoon, the contrasts.  The Man rang. Son 2’s Godfather is gravely ill again. And then I had a long conversation with someone I know whose young daughter, nearly three, is terminally ill.  “We never recorded her voice while she could still speak,” he said.  Wonder Nanny, who is very qualified, very competent and very caring, took Son 2 round to play there about a month ago. The father felt it was a success, so I’ll ask her to go again.  There is something very crap about the Mother who sends her Nanny round to help the desperate family.  But I just don’t know what to do. 

I picked Son 1 up in the closing minutes of After School Club.  He had his school photos, which are gorgeous.  At home, I just wanted to cut out pictures of my two gorgeous children and put them in their little cardboard frames, ready to send to Grandparents and Aunties.  The real-life versions of the two gorgeous children scrapped and screeched and shrieked for my attention.  Which they got. Words from earlier floated back:  “Her span is only going to be short so we’re trying to make sure it’s the best life possible.”  I will be less snappy with my children.

1.  Sleeping

2.  Smiling

3.  Sluicing

And of course I couldn’t get either of them up this morning. The Man left at 0530 on a Business Trip. I got up, had coffee, had breakfast, emptied dishwasher, hung washing out, put washing on, put boys’ breakfast out, showered, did hair and make up and STILL they weren’t bothering.  Why.  Why at the weekend, when I am gripping my bed like I’m on a 20th-floor ledge, do they make me get up? And then why do they not even hear me in the week? Even Son 2 aged 2, the original I WILL WALK 500 MILES AND I WILL WALK 500 MORE hypercharged baby was comatose.   I got them up, and I got us out.

When I picked Son 1 aged 5 up from school, he burrowed in his bag and produced several proof sheets from the school photos taken last week. Wonder Nanny had taken Son 2 along as well, so there were five of the two of them together.  i have long told Son 1 that if he smiles nicely in official photos, Mummy will buy him a present. The pictures are truly fantastic, and Son 1 knew it.  Crumple of small boy when he realised I didn’t have a present with me.  In my defence, I had said I needed to see the smiles first. We have agreed we will try and get to a joke shop tomorrow to see if they have a magic wand. 

I did them corn on the cob for tea. Served with little sharp skewery things in each end.  Kitchen gadgets I bought in the days when I though we weren’t having children.  Son 2 pulled his out and started shoving one through his teeth. Son 1 played pirates with his. The corn was too hot to eat, so I sliced it off onto their plates. Son 1 stared at the pile in disbelief. “I want it back on,” he wailed.  Upstairs Son 2 was in the bath while I sorted washing and Son 1 spoke to Birthday Boy Godbrother on the phone. “Big Poo!” came the battle cry. We went in. There was a toy turtle floating in the bubbles on the top. But nothing sinister. I put my hand in for the turtle. It wasn’t a turtle.  And my hand went straight through it, a five-fingered macerator which scattered the soft turd down, along and up the sides of the bath.    Son 2 couldn’t have had more toys in the bath if he’d piled up every one he owns in there.  Today’s Top Tip.  In net laundry bags (Lakeland and kitchen shops,) in the washing machine, Quick Wash. ”Big Poo,” said Son 2 again. We put him on the booster loo seat. He performed. Four chocolate buttons each for a poo in the loo.  Keeps the children still and quiet for just long enough to spray and wash the bath out.