1.  Gasping

2.  Blowing

3.  Snorting

4.  Bubbles

“Darling,” I said, putting my arms around The Man’s neck before he had his teeth in. “Men are Protectors.  Women are Nurturers.  Your job is to be Be Strong.  Mine is to Cherish.”  “What are you after?” he asked. “There’s a dead rat by the back door and I ain’t touching it,”  I said.  The large, clear-eyed, glossy-coated rat we saw sitting on its haunches in the back yard, gazing straight at us, coincided with the head lice outbreak. http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2009/10/05/the-ugly-bug-ball/ I didn’t put it in The Blog; I forgot.  So often happens with life’s little nasties when you have a Positive Attitude.  And then I looked up rats on Mumsnet. The post that haunted me said that the problem isn’t the one you see, it’s the huge family out of sight. So we called the Rat Man and he came, last Saturday, in an unmarked van.  He put one box down in the yard, behind a paving slab “where the boys can’t get it,” said The Man.  Yes darling I’m really going to let them play in the yard when there’s a rat the size of Son 2 aged 2y 1m living there. Another box went in the alleyway next to the house.  I went downstairs this morning. I put the kettle on. I put the first load of washing on.  I went to take the rubbish out, glanced through the window and there it was.  Smaller than before, the sheen on its fur gone.  Looking like it had died crawling out of the drainpipe across the doorway.   Which of course it probably had.  27 years of being asked why I’m vegetarian. Because I cannot cannot cannot stand critturs dying.

The Man is off on another Business Trip tomorrow, so we took Son 1 aged 5y and Son 2 out for breakfast.  By the time we got to the Cafe, Son 1 was so hungry he couldn’t behave.  The Man thought it was a disaster, but I think they’re improving.  Son 1’s eyes lit up when he saw the straw in his drink. He “always gets the bubbly glass,” and a few splashes of pineapple juice were spattered around. The Man growled.   Son 2 watched intently, took his straw in his little mouth and blew out his entire glassfull. The Man barked.

There’s another Festival in The Town so off we went. We met Friends with a 3 year old, and took the boys into the Marquee to paint shells.  Son 1 was Perfect Child, mixing a base colour, dabbing, adding glitter, doing twiddly bits at the edges. Son 2. It didn’t start well. He dabbed a great blob of red paint on the end of a paintbrush. And then I decided to take his reins off. The paint got on his reins. And on his hair, up his nose, on me and all over the nappy bag. I tried babywiping the paint out of his fringe and it just got rubbed in and looked like I’d dyed it. Then the red paintbrush went in the green paint tub. Then the glitter, which they were supposed to take little pinches of and sprinkle, was upturned onto his shell. Then he globbed blue paint all over Son 1’s shell and the tanks came over. I had to buy £6 worth of raffle tickets to make it up to the woman.

We did ice cream, we did coffee. We bought sausage rolls for lunch and Son 2 fell asleep. The Festival was packed. We bought a bottle of sparking white wine with six plastic glasses - four for us and two for whoever  turns up as soon as you’ve bought a bottle -  and sat down in the sunshine on the pavement by the side of The Museum.   A wedding party trooped past on the way to a boat trip from The Quay.   The boys crayoned, posted gravel in breeze block holes, and played with Go Gos and Son 2’s farm.  A friend walked by with his dog, and helped himself to a glass from the back of the Pram. The local policeman passed. “Vagrants!” he called. “Just drinking outside before it’s banned!” I called back.  The sun and the shadows moved round… the wedding party returned. We pushed the boys back home and gave them ready meals for tea.

1.   Battle

2.  Festival

3.  Party

There is another Festival in the Town.  The Plan was to celebrate stopping breastfeeding with champagne in The Square.   We dawdled and dilly-dallied over getting up.  Son 2 aged 13m was yawning, eye-rubbing, high-pitched shrieking and falling over every three minutes.  I got the hint and put him back to bed. Son 1 aged 4 had Mummy Time.  Playing on CBeebies on the computer.  And then out came The Pirates.  I’m ambivalent about Pirates.  My tens of thousands of regular readers will know that Son 1 first became enchanted with Pirates in Feb 2007, aged 2y 5m.  There was a Pirates 3rd birthday. A Peter Pan 4th birthday.  I was kinda hoping that maybe somehow Power Rangers or Spider Man or dinosaurs would move in at 4+. But then I wasn’t. Because everything we have is Pirates.  And, bored out of my tree as I am, I will miss them.  Like the breastfeeding.  So.  The Pirates were going to raid the new treasure chest.  But… exciting new twist… a Power Ranger Megatroyd was defending it.

We trogged down to the Festival.  It was packed, and we were hugely popular, with our Big Pram and rickety MacLaren.  We’d told Son 1 he could paint shells, like he did last year, and the year before.  He wanted his shells, I wanted my champagne, The Man wanted seafood.  Son 1 and I fought our way to shell-painting, and he was happy.  The Man got seafood, stuck a bottle of English sparkling white in the back of the Big Pram and shoe-horned it in the Marquee.  Son 1 painted earnestly, Son 2 ate the glitter pens and painted his own shell.  My plastic glass of bubbles stood on the table in front of the pre-schoolers. We met friends. The children played.  They all went on the bouncy castle, and Son 2 loved it, trying to dive-bomb it afterwards when I was taking him for a nappy change.  I shopped and bought cut-price Usbourne  books and  a birthday present for Granny.     

Son 2 spotted there was something missing.  There was an Office retirement party which I had to go to.  It was really lovely.  One colleague was retiring, one colleague - someone I’ve worked with for 17 years - was leaving to become a childminder.  Everyone came, so there was much reminiscing, pouring over old photos and laughing.  I took Son 2’s great babyring for the childminding colleague.  One of those we-could-get-thirty-quid-on-ebay-or-the-local-paper-oh-you-have-it-I-hope-it’s-useful decisions. It was a great do, and I got back way after midnight.  We bought the retiring colleague a star.