1.  Saying Goodbye

2.  Introductions

3.  Substitutions

I dropped my contact lens when I was getting up. “I’ll find it,” called Son 1 aged 4y 11m from bed, remembering how last time he got himself a Scooby Doo DVD for finding it. The Man found it, but didn’t admit it, giving Son 1 a clue instead. He came down the stairs, triumphant. ”I want a present now. From your secret present pile.” I gave him a Ben 10 pencil set I’d bought for his birthday.  The Man took him away to school and Son 2 aged 23m and I were left alone in the house.  Bereft.  For four and a half years I’ve worked flat out so they’re never apart from me for longer than two days. And now Son 1 will be gone five days at a time. Pang pang pang.  Son 2 didn’t care, he discarded the Tarzan DVD and put The Wiggles on.  And complained when I stopped it on the second time through so that we could go out.  

We went to the Beach By The Garden.  I took the Big Pram.  Before Son 2, I used to push the Big Pram everywhere. I covered miles and miles.  Son 2 fell asleep.  As I strode through coastal avenues I wondered whether I now had the chance to go for long walks on sunny Wednesdays for the next three years.  At the beach, each Wednesday Mum had only one boy. We last each had only one boy in December 2005.    It was very different.  Son 2 instantly expanded to fit the space alloted him: to the sea for water, climbing up me to balance on my shoulders, sitting with me, digging with me. At one point, as I tried again to loll back on the beach mat, drink black coffee from my flask and chat to the other mums, I considered saying: “Play by yourself, what do you think I am, your Nanny?”  He is of course designed to be irresistable.  I changed into my costume and swam in the sea. I turned round to look back and he had followed me down the sand, towing the beach mat, a Wednesday Mum completing the parade.  He had no intention of letting me go out swimming again, so we sat in the sea together, being slapped out by every seventh wave. “Again, again,” he chortled. 

We picked up Son 1, came back, they watched a bit of telly and I gave them an M and S ready meal spag bol for tea. Son 2 was weeping with misery over Son 1’s Ben 10 stationery kit. Son 1 loves it so much he won’t take anything  out of the box; Son 2 just wants to finger everything. Genuine, deep misery.  “Would you like one for your birthday?” “Yes peez.”  Good job I have the £3 Wall-E from TK MAxx, ready and raring to go.  I put Son 2 to bed. The Man and Son 1 wrapped his presents. Including Wall E.  The Man went out drinking. I came downstairs. On the phone was a message from the entertainer booked for the joint party a week on Saturday. ”Human Error. Mix Up.  Two shows booked for Saturday afternoon. Ours will have to change times. Sorry about short notice, he’s been leaving messaged on the wrong number. He’ll ring everyone. Not to worry.”  i left a message on his answerphone which said: “Sling Yer Hook, we’ll get someone else.”  Then I rang Wonder Nanny Crisis Management Services.  She suggested a person, and gave me a number. The Person can do the party. Hooray.

1.  Peter Pan

2.  Baking Pans 

3.  Panic

Peter Pan was the DVD. Son 1 aged 4y 11m and Son 2 aged 23m were playing with the toy pirates. We bought Son 1 a new Captain Hook yesterday. He has got through 2 Disney ones, so now we’re on Toyshop Traditional.  The old Captain Hook fell to pieces.  Son 1had found a Peter-And-The-Children pin badge that I’d bought him. ”I’m a Peter Pan fan, aren’t I?”  Orwell fashion, I have come to love Peter Pan. Ignore the dodgy author and the political incorrectness, and name another children’s classic that’s as brilliant on Motherhood.  The Lost Boys and The Pirates who want Mothers, Wendy who doesn’t want to be a Mother to Peter, Mrs Darling sitting in the empty bedroom, and poor Peter, damaged by a closed window and another little boy asleep in his bed. ”If you find your mothers,” he said darkly, “I hope you will like them.”  I bought my copy new in 1972, price 25p.  And I grew up and had a son.  Who feeds pieces of broken Captain Hook to toy crocodiles. 

 A grey day, with two shattered children. We decided yesterday went askew because we got the meals wrong. We drove the Big Town to do a Big Shop. Son 2 fell asleep in the car, Son 1 was car sick. We went down to the River and parked. The Man and I had coffee, the boys ate peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.  In the supermarket, we bought heaps of cake and biscuit making ingredients. I have a week off, the forecast is not good, and I have much Uber Mother ground to make up. Son 1 longs for me to make a cake.  I find cake tins frankly baffling.  There are the ones with the clock hand things in them, presumably used for Getting Your Cake Out. And the ones that are rings with round circles at the bottom. Presumably also used for Getting Your Cake Out.  Greaseproof paper, baking paper, baking parchment. All for Getting Your Cake Out.  I’m only guessing, but is there sometimes a problem Getting Cakes Out?  But anyway. We can manage muffins. And Biscuits.  And Wonder Nanny will be here. I bet she can Get A Cake Out. 

We did a massive pile of shopping with loads of Sunday afternoon yellow stickers.  Son 1’s shopping treat was a Scooby Doo biscuit making kit. I thought it was going to be a box with biscuits for them to draw on with an icing pen. Oh no. Back home there was an egg and milk involved. I put too much milk and egg in the packet mix and ended up with gloop so sticky it glued my fingers together.  I finally fought my way out of the mixing bowl, and the boys rolled it, cut the Scooby shapes and we put them in the oven.  Son 2 washed green beans for tea.  They had roast lamb… I went for a run.

1.  Ghost Busting

2.  Crowd Spotting

3.  Crab Grabbing

I’m keen to watch Wall-E, which had fab reviews. Son 1 aged 4y 10m and Son 2 aged 23m have had it a week now. They’ve seen it, The Man’s seen it, Nanna’s seen it.  This morning I sat down to watch it with the boys. Son 2 stuck it for about half an hour and then started drifting about. He posted coloured craft lolly sticks and crayons through the hole in the side of Son 1’s bass drum.  He spread small Playmobil pirate pieces all over the floor. He climbed the sofa, the Man’s chair and my chair. To the top, scaling the summit of the seat backs.  “All right,” I said “I’ll get going and have my shower.”  Son 1 tried to persuade me to stay. “You haven’t seen the ghosts yet.” “I can watch them next time.” “Do you know what you need if you see a ghost?  A magnet. Did you know that?” “No, I didn’t know that.”  Son 1 nodded. “And it has to be a strong one.”  I can only assume this is something to do with Scooby Doo.

We took the boys out. To the library to change their books, and then down to a cafe to give them chips for lunch. We picked up Glamorous Young Friend, who we’ve not seen for a while.  She’d been in The Town working on her fancy dress outfit for the Festival finale. We sat outside at the front of the cafe so we could people spot. We usually sit in a great big area at the back, usually empty, where small children have no impact on other people. The change was enough to send Son 1spiralling off into orbit. He was awful. He knew the cafe, he knew where he sat.  “Oh come on Son 1, sit here, watch the people and let’s see who’s the first to see someone we know.” It was me. Thank God our friends and his little 3 year old friend headed past. They joined us. “Rude not to,” said the Dad. Little 3 year old is so delighted because Son 2 says his name. 

We bought crabbing lines at the Discount Store, and went down to the riverside at the end of The Terrace.  We’ve had various comedy fishing trips on The Boat: “Omelette again, Mother,” and we’ve had the odd successful crabbing session on assorted quays and jetties up and down the river.  This afternoon though it was like we’d Cast Our Nets On The Other Side. The crabs almost jumped out of the water into our buckets.  Little 3 year old’s Mum was the champ - she caught a whopper.  Which did in fact jump out of our bucket into the water.  Son 1 was leaping around with excitement, barking orders, spotting crabs, tugging at lines. Little 3 year old was casting bacon with a fishing rod. Son 2 was sliding around on the slippery green river wall trying to be Big. I caught a few tiny shrimp with him and put them in a bucket so he could look at fish. The Man caught a couple of huge shrimp, which he put in our bucket. I’m pretty sure his shrimp ate our shrimps. It’s a crab-eat-crab world.  It was brilliant, but Son 2 was very hard to handle.  He wanted to lean into the water, he wanted to grab the bait hooks, he skidded and stumbled on sea weed and limpets, he wanted to carry the buckets. He wanted to catch something himself.  With a score of well over 15 crabs, not including our escapee, and two shrimps I declared for tea.  “Can we go fishing again tomorrow?” asked Son 1, as I got tea ready. I said we could. “Can we got straight after breakfast?” I said we could. I have a feeling tomorrow’s may turn into our earliest family breakfast since December 25.

1.  Scrappy Doo

2.  Scooby Doo

3.  Scoopy Poo

Yesterday’s marathon gave me an afternoon off, and I took Son 1 aged 4y 10m to see Scooby Doo and the Pirates in The Big City.  I felt desperately guilty about Son 2 aged 22m… when I booked the tickets last October he was 13m old. Couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t do anything.  Now he thinks he’s 4, loves Scooby Doo and can point him out on a poster, loves Pirates (”Arrrr!” and “Hook!”) and would have been devastated if any of us had admitted he was being left behind. Instead we pretended that I was taking Son 1 to school, and Wonder Nanny engineered things so Son 2 was asleep when I swooped in and out to collect him.

Great show and a great time.  Just as I fell in love with Anthony during The Wiggles, there is now Something There That Wasn’t There Before with Shaggy.  He’s happy and kind,  he loves animals and dancing and he adores food. We were in the second row. Son 1 kept hiding under the chairs of the front row when the pirates came out.  He seems so big when we’re with Son 2, but on his own, in a theatre with 2000 people he seemed tiny. “I know who the pirate queen is Mummy, the  lady who likes chocolate in the first bit.” 

“Do you need the loo?” I asked before we left the theatre. “No,” he answered crossly, as he always does. Then, two miles into the 70-mile trip home “I need a poo!”  “Can you wait a bit?” “No! It’s coming!”  We stopped in a supermarket car park.  Lidl and the Co-op. Not a loo between them. We asked in a community centre. No, the loos couldn’t be opened.  It rained.  I fished in my hessian shopping bag.  A printed out email from The Office and a handful of napkins.  I perched Son 1 in a corner by a hedge. “Have a wee and then go on that.”  He obliged.  I picked up the Matter.  And that is how I came to be walking around a shopping centre with a rolled-up email filled with poo in one hand and a four year old’s grasp in the other.  I found a lined bin and got rid of it.  Pre-children, pre-swine flu, I didn’t even know you could get small bottles of antiseptic hand gel. But as it happened, I had one in the car.   I cleaned my hands. “Wash your hands with this,” I handed the bottle to Son 1.  His small voice came from the back. “Oh. Missed.  It’s gone everywhere.”

1.  Comprehending

2.  Coconuts

3.  Clarifying

Son 2 aged 19m wept, tantrumed and screamed as Son 1 aged 4y 7m and I left the house this morning.  In Wonder Nanny’s arms, he gazed through the window at us as we got in the car.  It’s borne in on me that the poor little mite has no way of understanding why Mummy and Son 1 are going off together and leaving him.   Memo.  Lots of books about school/nursery from now on.   Stick with him the whole weekend.    He started his tantrum about 20 minutes before we left, when I did my usual slow, clear and repetitive “Mummy and Son 1 are going to say goodbye.”  So Being Positive, another Sign Of Excellent Receptive Language.

Son 1 and I went to Tesco for a Big Shop after I picked him up from Nursery.  He was amazingly well-behaved.   We spotted marked-down coconuts in the yellow-sticker trays.  “My whole life I have always wanted a coconut,” he said, sitting in the 15 kg max weight seat and stripping some of the fibre off the shell.  “Mummy how do we open it?”  ” I don’t know, I can’t remember.  I thought you wanted to make a hole in it and drink the milk. ” “Yes I do, but what shall we use?”  “I don’t know, we’ll have to wait till we get home and see what we’ve got.  We used to have hours of fun trying to get into coconuts when I was small.”  “What did you do to get in?”  “Don’t know, my dad used to do it. Smashed them to smithereens.”  “How did he smash them?”  “Can’t remember. I think he used to just throw them on the floor, very hard.”  Son 1 peered down over the side of the shopping trolley.    ”Don’t even think about it,” I growled.

He behaved impeccably, didn’t pester, didn’t whine, got down from the trolley and trotted around happily holding his coconut. “They have these in Aloha Scooby Doo.”  So back home I showed him the paddling pool I’d bought from TK Maxx.  He can’t wait.  But the weather has turned, and a loud lightning/driving rain thunderstorm moved slowly over us this evening.  “I don’t mind playing in it in the rain.”  I got into a coconut hole with a metal skewer.  Wonder Nanny stuck a straw in so Son 1 could, like Shaggy and Scooby drink the milk.  “I don’t like it.”   Son 1 brought Son 2 a book about fish back from Nursery.  Son 2 is obsessed with it.   He has a word for Shark, and Boat, and Bus, and Please, and Banana, and Car, and Down, and Upstairs and Outside, and Bubble.  Still not quite recognisable to anyone except those who adore him… but we think he is a Miraculous, Magical Marvel.

1.  Extra Boy

2.  Mummy’s Boy

3.  Best Friends

A Friend was up for An Outing. First suggestion too expensive, second suggestion they’d already done.  Son 1 butted into all the discussions and phone calls.  He wanted to go to the New Play Centre.  I pretended not to hear. (Can’t stand it.)  The Mother of Son 1 aged 4y 4m’s Best Friend rang.  Best Friend had been whinging all morning, driving them mad.  He wanted to see Son 1.  What were we up to?  Could she bring him round and then she’ll have Son 1 overnight next weekend?  The New Play Centre it was.   Son 1 and the other Little Friend played together, Son 2 played in the baby area, the Ball Pool and the Toddler Section.  He rocked and pulled off and climbed and threw and slid and rode.  The Man talked Boats with Little Friend’s father.  Best Friend arrived.  Play. Lunch. Play.

Best Friend came back to the house, and hooray hooray, Son 1’s new Scooby Doo DVD had arrived.  That was them sorted.  I put Son 2 to bed.  Nappy change, in his sleeping bag, and then I put him in his cot. “I’m just going to do the window, and then I’ll come back and Son 2 and Mummy will have a sleep on the bed.”  For the first time he sat burbling instead of screaming as I pulled down the blind and put the blanket up. (Stuffed along the top of the roller and draped down the sides.  Son 2 does not sleep if there is Any Light At All.)  We snugged down together on the bed.  He hugged and held and scrunched his fists in my hair… and pressed his head against my cheek and clung.  And he’s lovely and cuddly, and we miss each other and I’ve decided.  When I’m off, he goes to sleep in the daytime by lying next to me.

Son 1 and Best Friend were having an elaborate game involving the Scooby Doo monsters, the Scooby Friends, all Son 1’s pirates, Captain Hook’s ship, the Lost Boys raft, the Woollies Pirate ship, the Tower of Doom and the ELC monsters.  Captain Hook was sitting in the front of the Mystery Machine with Shaggy and Scooby.   The DVD finished and the pirates paraded around the house.  They were warned off upstairs, but a jam on the toy keyboard woke Son 2.  I took him in the lounge and they melted away to Son 1’s bedroom.  Best Friend’s Mother came to collect him. I heard her ask Son 1: “Would you like to come and stay with Best Friend next weekend?”  “Will Mummy and Daddy be there?”  he replied.  Bit of work to do on that one, then.  At bedtime, when I left Son 2 in his cot, he screamed Blue Murder.

1.  The Rash

2.  Rash Actions

3.  Splash

Son 1 aged 4 shrieked regularly and loudly through the night. Till: “If Mummy doesn’t get some sleep she won’t be well enough to go and see our friends tomorrow.”  He woke Son 2 aged 13m up at 0430.  I don’t think Son 2’s spots are chickenpox.  They twinkle.  They’re barely there… they get brighter… they fade… they vanish.  Lots around his neck, front and back.  A couple of very faint ones on his face.  Some angrier looking ones in his little baby nappy creases.  Could be chickenpox, or could be me not believing any child can poo SIX times in one day and leaving him too long sitting in a dirty nappy.

One Wednesday friend has vomiting.  The others have diarrhoea.  And still I took the boys to see each family, separately.  We met Mother 1 and the nearly-3 year old in Costa.  Son 2 is of course the child I do not want to get a vomiting bug. “He’ll be asleep by the time we get there,” I said.   Hey ho.  We went to get Son 1’s hair cut afterwards.  Short back and sides.  He looks great.  If about 7 years old. ”I hate my haircut.”  “Why?” “The hair is in my mouth”  He was really too tired to walk back home, so he sat on the Pram handle, hung on to me and I wheeled them both back somehow.

And then we drove over to the other Wednesday friends’ house.  He played with his Friend, Son 2 played drums, pulled toys out, pulled books out and ate grapes. Late arriving, we didn’t go till three, when both boys were wiped out with fatigue.  At home I got Son 2 to bed for 20 minutes; Son 1 fell asleep watching Scooby Doo.  Son 1 wanted a shower before bed.  I left him in it and Son 2 playing in the bathroom while I drew curtains, tidied beds etc.  “Mummeeee. Emergency!”  A large roll of Andrex had been dumped in the water pooling in the bath.  Son 2 stood by the taps looking pleased with himself.   It took me two hours to get him to sleep.  It’ll be me cutting the breast-feeding/The Man being away/teeth… or maybe he just has got chickenpox.

(The Man has told one of his colleagues about my blog.  I will kill him.  No-one knows.  I can’t put your comment up because you used your real name…  But you did make me larf out loud at ten thirty at night…) 

1. A Hand in the Night

2. Scoffing

3. Scooby

I was woken in the wee hours by the touch of a small hand on my arm.  Son 1 aged 3 y 10m on the midnight prowl.  Semi-asleep, I lifted him up and put him between The Man and me.    I know there are all sorts of reasons why I should send him straight back to his own bed… but… we’ve been singing Puff the Magic Dragon. Even as a child I was slain by ”One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more.” There will come a day when his automatic “I’m awake in the night, I think I’ll go find Mummy and Daddy” reaction won’t work any more. 

Son 2 aged 10m did really will with his breakfast today - two-thirds of a Weetabix in some strawberry yoghurt. He apparently ate well at lunch and tea as well, according to The Man, who picked him up from the Nursery.  Dropping him off was an ordeal, his little face was screwed up, his starfish hands reached out and he HOOWWLLLED.   It’s such a gutpunch getting in the car when I can still hear him screaming through thick walls from 30 yards away. However, she said brightly, he was fine when he was picked up, and he was on good form at bathtime when I got back.

Today The Man and I, in our own worlds, neglected our various vital tasks while we tried to sort out a promised treat for Son 1 aged 3 y 10m.  He wants a Scooby Doo van with the Scooby Friends and Monsters.  He has seen it at a friend’s house at a party. I have tramped the length and breadth of the Big Town, and can only find Scooby Friends and Monsters.  So The Man drove 15 miles to another Town and bought a van and Shaggy, which he’d seen on his travels.  I forgot to tell him that on the way to The Nursery Son 1 had proclaimed that in fact he just wanted the Scooby Friends and the Monsters. Van not necessary.  Only I was too busy at The Office to remember to tell him.  So.  I was supposed to ring HM Revenue and Customs today, and didn’t.  And The Man was supposed to take in Son 2’s prescription request for Infant Gaviscon.  And didn’t.  But Son 1 loved his Scooby treats.

1.   The Doctor

2.   Support

3.   Scoop

I like this doctor.  All the partners at our practice are great - I just can’t really work out what you have to do to get to see them.  If I try and get an appointment, there’s an interrogation by the telephonist, who gives you the following options: A phone call from a locum doctor in the next half hour or a phone call from one of the partners (someone we may have seen before) at some point today.  When they will decide if they need to see you.  Argue past that, and you’re offered an appointment with a locum.  I did all this yesterday at 8am, and was offered a 3pm locum appointment.  I said, for the third time, that my baby had been ill for five days, had been very sick twice that morning, had rampant diarrhoea and was hospitalised for it last week, and that I’d prefer to see someone sooner if possible.  The telephonist then said “Yes, i suppose they might want to see him a bit sooner” and gave me a 0905 appointment with the Duty Doctor. 

Who, as I said, I like.  Son 2 was lethargic, fretful and clingy.  I reported yesterday’s saga. Duty Doctor said it’s infectious diarrhoea, he’s not dehydrated, there’s nothing that can be done except watch him and “support” him if he gets any worse.  Which is what they did last week in the hospital.  Did I want to take him to the Hospital Here to have him assessed? - Not if I don’t need to.   - Bring him back tomorrow then, I’ll weigh him again and we’ll see how he is.  1120 appointment. Or come earlier and get reception to call him when we arrive.  He’ll see us when he’s finished with his next patient.   Simple.

Wonder Nanny took Son 1 aged 3y and 9m for a hair cut while we were seeing the GP. It’s short, and he loves it.  He looks rock hard.  Son 2 and I perfected a new game while they were out.  Son 2 clings on to a chair, because standing is still his favourite thing.  Only he can’t quite do it at the moment, because he’s ill.  So his knees buckle and he topples.  And I rescue him with a big melodramatic scoop and cuddle and scores of kisses, and Son 2 giggles and giggles.  After a couple of times he was deliberately falling towards me to make me do it.  When Son 1 watched this game, he was over like a shot.  Scooping up Son 2 and kissing him.  Which Son 2 didn’t like, because he only wants me at the moment.   Son 1 gave up. “Come upstairs and watch telly with me mummy.  Leave him.” It must be agony having Mummy home for a bonus week and watching her giving the baby every drip of attention.  I sat him on my knee and we watched Scooby Doo.