1.  Splashback

2.  Flashback

3.  Backtrack

Son 2 aged 20m came in the bath with me this morning.  This was a Good Thing. From when he was tiny, Son 2 lay on his feeding pillow watching me in the shower.  Then he sat up and watched me i in the shower. Then he crawled towards the bath.  Then he pulled himself up.  And then he used to play in the water, every morning, while I showered and washed my hair.  Always. At some point recently he wouldn’t come in with me any more.  I can’t remember when. Son 1 aged 4y 8m had started watching DVDs downstairs instead of Ben 10-style CItv upstairs… and Son 2 was interested in some of them.  Or he was playing with toys.  I’ve given him the choice, and off he’s gone.  This morning we read 5 stories, and he decided to come in with me.  Played with his new watering cans, didn’t want to get out. Nice to have him back.

I went for coffee with a Colleague on maternity leave.  An eight month old little girl in the pushchair with us.  I held her, and realised I simply couldn’t remember either of the boys at that age.  So I’ve been back a year in the Blog.  http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2008/06/09/before-7am/ On June 9 2008 I’d just had an awful night with Son 2 screaming for me, so bad that I’d left him alone in the small hours and gone downstairs to make a cup of tea.  The following day I took him to a cranial osteopath.  Now he sleeps through the night, every night.  He can cry when I put him down, but never for more than 5 minutes. And today he went to sleep without crying when I left.  It all passes.

 Son 1 is mad about a Nick Sharrett book called “You Choose.”  It came from Nursery in his Bookstart box, and we start off choosing where we are going to go, what sort of house we will live in, who our family and friends will be, our furniture, clothes, food, transport, jobs, hobbies and bed.  Well, I choose, and Son 1 says “I’m coming with you.” Tonight we chose a tree house in a forest near a village.  Then we did Pumpkin Soup, A Pipkin of Pepper and Delicious. Then I asked: “Did you get the book for me?”  Oxfam, again, had a book in the window about a child with Son 2’s (unusual) name.  http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2009/04/29/well-done-mummy/ Son 1 and I had it from the library when I was pregnant.  It may have been where I first got the name idea.   I’d asked Wonder Nanny to get it.  “Yes.”  “Did you read it?” “Yes.”  What are the chances of Oxfam, a few hundred yards from our house, putting two children’s books in the window, both featuring the same very unusual boy’s name?   There is glue holding this world together.

1.  Sleep Solutions

2.  Devolution

3.  Evolution

Son 2 aged 20m slept in forever. Something to do with getting to bed at 1030 last night after our Journey.  Over these last five days we have really cracked the early waking. It’s incredibly simple. You just don’t put them to bed till 11pm.  And they lie in.  I’m not entirely sure how that’ll roll along when I’m back in The Office, but at least I know the principle is sound. Son 1 aged 4y 8m was getting a bit frisky when we vetoed all his ideas for entertainment in case he waked Son 2… but eventually settled for a screening of Free Willy (£3 from Tesco, got it last night when we stopped off for milk.)  “Thank you Mummy for buying that lovely story for me,” he said, after they sprung Willy and the credits rolled.

We went to the Rockpool Beach.  Heaven.  Hot hot hot. The tide coming in all the time, so we had to keep packing up camp and creeping to a strip about 2 yards wide finally left at high tide. Son 1 and Best Friend at one point cleared everything up for me and carried it over. Stunned, I grovelled, gratefully.  Son 2 toddled off with them to paddle and pull seaweed and peer in rockpools. We had lunch. I put a roasting, fainting Son 2 in the Big Pram and wheeled him along some shady pavements, and he went to sleep. Son 1 and Best Friend were waiting at the top of the cliff. “We were worried mad about you Mummy, we couldn’t see you anywhere,” said Son 1. What he meant was he’d eaten his lunch and I’d told him he could have an ice cream afterwards.  So he and his posse of friends were waiting. He chose bubble gum flavoured ice cream, which until today I had no idea existed. 

And then I got changed and went Swimming In The Sea. Best Friend and I played a game getting in. “You’re winning, because you’re in up to your tummy and I haven’t got my bottom in yet.” “Oh Lordy, lummy, lummy, Lordy… look at you up to your chest and I haven’t got my tummy in.” Then he was chin high and I realised he would drown if I swam off, but another Wednesday Mum had spotted the problem and stayed to keep guard.  Swimming In The Sea is fab.  If you never have or simply don’t… then just Get In There.  There is something we-all-flippered-our-way-out-of-the-swamp about it.  I swam out for about 100m in an emerald, pond-flat sea and nothing mattered and everything made sense.  I swam back and the reflections of the buildings on the cliff top were almost still in the water.   Son 1 sat, as he always does, at the water’s edge, watching anxiously.  I’ll just do another 20 minutes, I thought, till I saw Son 2 up with a Wednesday Mum, staring out to sea.

1.  Animals

2.  Fish

3.  Insects

A slow start today, with Son 1 aged 4y 6m watching Cars (found posted between the speakers.)  And Son 2 aged 18m pleading for The Wiggles at every opportunity.  There is a pair of Son 1’s pants sitting on the side waiting to be put away. Son 2 stared at the picture.  “Digger,” he said, clearly. He’s using Bah a lot now. For: Bath, ball, book, boat and sheep.  If I listen very closely, I realise that he’s got far more words than I give him credit for.  He has a word for “toes” which is similar but not quite. And eye. And arm. And nose. And mouth. And hair.  All not quite near enough to be pretty damn close.  But the big things in his life show no sign of moving.  Crocodiles are still “Nap nap.”  Fish are still opens-and-closes-mouth.  Cows, owls and dogs are all variations of “oooo.” But he can do roh roh roh for Road Roller (and Row Row Row Your Boat.) And Dum Dum for dump truck. HIs Bye Bye is beautiful, but he rarely bothers with his Allo any more.  And often there is a hint of Son 1’s name.  Each time I think I hear it, and I ask him to repeat it, and he goes all fey and faraway: “Me?  Speak?  Don’t know how.  Not trying.”

We went to the Garden With a Beach.  With two Wednesday Friends and their parents, and a couple of friends of theirs.  The beach is at the bottom of a long, steep jungle-like garden, all bamboo, pine and gunnera.  There is a lake at the bottom full of rainbow trout, which Son 2 loved.  On the beach I put both boys in their Sunsuits.  Son 1 because within 15 minutes he’d soaked his shoes, tee shirt and vest. And Son 2 because he just aimed himself at the water and nuclear rockets wouldn’t have stayed him from his course…  Son 2 was great. The water was freeeeeeezing.  The beach was tiny stones, hell to walk on. But he didn’t care.   There was moving water. There were sandy stones.  Pig in muck.

Back home, Son 1 slept, Son 2 watched The Wiggles, and I made pizza for tea.  I was late with it, and then we got them to bed late.  Then, after four books, Son 1scratched the back of his head in a way that made me reach for the Nitty Gritty.  Bedroom light full on.  Contact lenses out.  I simply can’t see any more.  I don’t think there was anything living, and he may have a touch of sunburn on his hairline from not wearing a hat today.  Famous Last Words.  Then when I finally poured myself a glass of wine ands switched the computer on… there he was at the top of the stairs. “I can’t sleep.”  Very, very unlike him.  I’ve only just got him back, and normally he’s a head-on-the-pillow and that’s it kind of boy.

1.  Slumbers

2.  Climbers

3.  Numbers

I bought Son 1 aged 4y 6m two new DVDs.  Tarzan and Cars. Two-for-the-price-of-one at Tesco.  Bribery for behaving at the Trade Fair yesterday.  This morning, for the first time ever, I managed to get Son 2 aged 18m back to sleep after he’d woken up at 6am.  I snugged in bed with him; he snugged in bed with me.  He dozed.  I read somewhere that some children are hyper-stimulated by their mother’s presence in bed, and always counted Son 2 as one of them, lucky me.  But this morning, we did it.  His body relaxed, - he’s usually rigid with tension - his fluffy hair in my face.  Unheard of.   And then Son 1 strode in and switched on the lights: “I want to watch my DVDs.”

He watched. I got ready for work.  I went downstairs.  Tarzan was on.  Son 1 was climbing along the top of the sofa back, hoo-hoo-hoo ing.  Television of course has no influence on children’s behaviour.  On the way to The Trade Show, I passed some sheep in the fields.  A ewe lay on her stomach on the grass.   A lamb stood on the top of her back, sure-footed, walking a few tiny steps forward, and a few tiny steps back.  The ewe didn’t move.  The lamb turned round.  All without watching Tarzan.  

The Trade Show went well.  A lovely day, a lovely location. I was in linen and a black straw hat.  I bought ostrich burgers for The Man.  Back home, the boys were playing with a 3 year old friend who’d come calling.  His mum supervised upstairs while I grabbed a cup of tea and some food.  The boys had  been out to the beach, and were pretty shattered and hyper. Even in bed, Son 1 was still playing for more time before lights out.  Eventually, five books later, he passed out.

1.  Black Night

2.  Spring Colour

3.  A Rolling Nose

A murderous night.  Son 1 aged 4y 5m again.  Waking screaming for Mummy.  At the fourth time, at 5am, I was not patient, understanding or tolerant.  “Stop making that noise or you will wake Son 2!” I snapped.  Son 2 aged 18m woke, and screamed.  The Man went in with him.  Son 1 went back to sleep.  I went downstairs for coffee and the Sunday papers. 

It was a beautiful day.  Daffodils everywhere I drove.  The Crocuses we planted outside The Office in December are just about over, but still a great splash of colour.   The road near the entrance to Son 1’s nursery is wooded, and there are carpets of yellow primroses, and clumps of daffs.  Bright pink camellias, and fresh green leaves unfurling on a hydrangea.  The birds are singing, the sky was blue.  Son 1 went to Nursery without a coat because we can’t find his blazer.  It was just about warm enough.

After a tortuous weekend of failing to find a Red Nose anywhere, I found a leftover one at The Office.  I picked Son 1 up from Nursery.  There is apparently a school play on Friday afternoon for which he is learning some songs.  And he says I am going to it.  Only I’m supposed to be in The City, 60 miles away on Friday afternoon.    I am still mystified as to where everyone finds out this stuff.  There was a tiny  book of dates-in-the-year given out at the start of term.  This obviously has to be decanted into the calendar when it comes into the house.  I’ll learn. We parked near the house, and  Son 1 clutched his Red Nose as he got out of the car.  He dropped it.  It rolled across the road, and then into the entrance to some sea-level riverside properties opposite.  Son 1 howled.  “My Red Nose!” A passing youth couldn’t help laughing out loud.  The Nose picked up the pace, rolled away down the steep slope to the waterfront and disappeared out of sight.  I put a sobbing Son 1 in the house and went to investigate.  There was a red blob in the road at the bottom of the hill.  There was more comedy potential in it plopping off into the river and drifting out to sea, but I’m glad we saved it.

1.  Red Eye

2.   Red Nose

3.  Red Letter Day

Son 1 aged 4y 5m is the night waker now.  We’ve drilled him out of coming into our bed, so he just lies awake shouting until I turn up or he dozes off again.  0130 this morning, and then I couldn’t get back to sleep.   Son 2 aged 18m was perfect.  Not a peep from pillowdown to sun up.  The Office was in Eighties clothes For Charity today.  I can’t remember when it last took me so long to decide what to wear.  There was a real risk I would turn up in 80s wear and no-one would realise.  I settled on a Fun Boy 83 tee shirt and white mules.

I also put the Captain Hook outfit in the car in case we got to Nursery, and once again, everyone was wearing something funny for money except Son 1.  All in uniform.  One little girl walked in clutching two red noses.  The Office was very Red Nose.  The Big Town was very Red Nose.  I made a hair appointment and they were all Red Nosing.  I went to TK Maxx at lunchtime and they were all at it.  People were walking round with their faces made up, jangling buckets.  When I picked Son 1 up, he wanted a Red Nose.  “Mrs Nursery Teacher says you can get them anywhere.”  ”You can, I’ve seen heaps today, we’ll get one on the way home,” I said.  Tesco.  Nope.  Shell garage. Nope. Co-op. Nope.  MacDonald’s.  Nope.  “Red noses, red noses, red noses,” sang Son 1 annoyingly in the back.  “We’ll get one from Oxfam tomorrow,” I said.  He wailed.

The Wednesday Mums and I went out for a drink when I’d finished work this evening.  This is a Good Thing as we are rubbish at getting out.  Topics of conversation… children… Northern Ireland, the state of the economy, fitness, families, Doing Everything.  It is Good To Get Out.

1.  Early Speech

2.  Trains And Boats

3.  Everyone Else

Marvellous Night My A***.  Son 1 aged 4y 5m woke shouting at 3pm and That Was It.  I couldn’t sleep, I went downstairs and in the double bed next to Son 2 aged 18m’s cot… he woke up at about 4am calling “Ma Ma! Ma Ma!” and I ignored him.  Then he woke again at 0530 and we were off and up.  18 amazing months old.  Wordcount.  Look Away if you’re bored, this is a scientific project.  I am Capturing Language Development.  Ma Ma. Da Da.  Na (for no) Sss (with nodding) for yes.  Aaar for parrot.  Rarr for lion, tiger, bear and dinosaur.  Mooo for cow.  Woo for Dog.  Na Na (snap snap) for crocodile.  Dum dum (”Dump trucks are good at dump, dump dumping”) for lorry/vehicle.  Bye Bye.  Allo.  Meeh for milk.  Oooo (hoo, hoo) for owl.   Ba Ba for beep beep.  Rabid screaming: I am Disappointed.  His understanding is fantastic.  At one point today I asked Son 1 “Do you want CBeebies or The Wiggles?”  Son 2 nodded and jigged.  “You want The Wiggles?”  Nodding.  Off he trotted to the shelf where the DVDs live. 

Getting ready to visit The Museum with the Wednesday Friends, the boys escaped upstairs while I tidied.  I heard boxes being pulled out.  After 15 minutes I went upstairs to check.  They’d pulled out some Thomas Wooden Railway boxes, and Son 1 had started to build a track.  They were both hiding in the cupboard, pulling the doors closed behind them.  We finished the track, they played with two electric engines and I went downstairs again.  Son 1 wore his Captain Hook outfit for the Museum, and we walked all the way down.  Old ladies twinkled at him, and, by the time we got there he was twinkling back.  He played with Best Friend and Three Year Old With His Arm In Plaster.   Son 2 played in the boats, but fundamentally  just wanted to go upstairs, to go outside, to get out into the world.

We all went into Pizza Express for lunch.  Five boys under five, and we got away with it.  I had vegetables, pitta and hummous for Son 2, and Son 1, who was starving, raided it. We had a bottle of wine between us, and wondered whether our lunch was stress-free because the boys behaved, or because we’d added alcohol.  Afterwards Son 2 dozed for about twenty minutes of the walk home.  Son 1 managed the whole walk.  ”I want you to change your mind and buy me a gun to play with.” “No. I don’t want you playing with guns.”  “Everyone else has got one.”  The first one.  Before he’s four and a half.  I’m so proud.    He found a thick stick and played shooting people all the way home.    Where I heard the news from Germany. 

I made roast dinner, Nanna came round.  The boys, The Man, Nanna and I ate dinner.  Son 1 stayed at the table and ate two pieces of parsnip.  It was all very successful.  Until pudding, which was some iced buns/cup cakes I’d bought earlier.  Son 1 ate the icing from the doughnut and Gromit cup cake … and then started careering round, fizzing like a Catherine Wheel.

1.   Fruit

2.   Health Food

3.  Unexpectedly Vegetable

Gadzooks.  Son 2 aged 17m woke us with foghorn blasts at 0430.  “I’ll go,” said The Man.  “No I will,” I said.  “I didn’t see him last night and I miss him.”  I took half an hour getting him back to sleep.  He woke again at 0530 and I got into bed with him.  He wanted food.  I clung to a dopey wish that if I just stuffed him with food he would go back to sleep.  At 6am I took him down to the kitchen, where he ate everything he could see: a plum, a bagel, a banana, grapes.   Son 1 aged 4y 5m came down.  We were up. 

We had a 5th birthday party; one of Son 1’s Old Nursery friends, run by his Old Nursery Nurse.  We’d bought him a Power Ranger.  Son 1 had stood in front of the Ben 10 shelves, fingering each packet, clearly in love.   “We don’t know that Five Year Old likes Ben 10 do we?” I’d said.  “But all Little Boys like Power Rangers.”  Five Year Old opened the door.  He was wearing a Ben 10 outfit.  They played, we went outside and Son 2 had a great time playing with the diggers and building toys.  At lunch, Son 1 ignored the chocolate fingers, pizza, crisps, sandwiches and flapjacks in favour of some long breadsticks and cut up strawberries.  Never happened before.  Later, when I asked him why he hadn’t eaten much he said: “I wasn’t hungry.” I just need to get the hang of doing that and bingo I’m size 12.

I washed 3 cashmere jumpers this afternoon.  This is an Exceedingly Good Thing.  Two have been in the bottom of the linen basket for months.   The boys played making potions in the sand table while The Man watched.  This was also a Good Thing.  He is Obsessive Compulsive… and they were trashing everything.  Son 1 was painting the shed with a Big Paintbrush and water.  Son 2 was mixing plants, mud, stones and twigs with a watering can and then drinking it.  At tea we told Son 1 pudding was yoghurt, because of the huge slice of chocolate cake he’d eaten from his party bag.   “Wonder Nanny lets us have raisins after tea, they’re not too bad for us,” he said hopefully.  “Then she takes us upstairs for books and bath and bed.  And then Mummy comes home.”  He looked at me.  “And sometimes you don’t.”  Cannon ball shaped hole in middle of body.  At bedtime, he was on the bedroom floor looking at a dinosaur book with The Man.  I was lying in his bed, trying to get him to hurry up.  The Man told him how tired I was.   “Put your hand up if you like cucumber,” said Son 1.

1.  Mama

2.  Na Na

3.  Ta Da 

I didn’t make it back from The Office yesterday in time to see Son 2 aged 17m before he went to bed.  And I didn’t make it back in time tonight.  Pang.  Not enjoying that.  But Hey ho, it’s the weekend so I’ve got two days with him, hooray hooray.  I ended up in the double bed in his room last night… insomnia, then Son 1 aged 4y 5m screaming out for me, and then “I think I’ll just bump into a few things in Son 2’s room in the night and maybe he’ll wake up and I can have a cuddle.”  Nope.  The only time you can guarantee that child will sleep like a stone is when you need him awake.  But it did give me the full benefit this morning, at 0615, of Son 2 standing up in his cot, gripping the rail in both little fists and yelling out “Ma-Ma!”  

He did a “Na na” as he reached for his snack tub as well, not that we’ve got any.  He could say Nana for banana months back, and then it just faded away, so I’m pleased it’s back.  I’m  hoping I can catch the way his language develops in the blog; he’s certainly having lots of attempts at words.  Ni Ni Ni is just peering through for “no.”   He did a “mooo” at a picture of cow during reading today.  And then Son 1 and I left for Nursery and the office and That Was That.  I haven’t seen him.  The Man says he’s on fine form.

Son 1’s coat was covered in mud yesterday during a game which involved making a hide out for Four Arms.   So he went to school in a third hand blazer.  Owner 1 is now on a £30k first job for a commercial law firm.  The second owner is thirteen, Son 2’s Godbrother.  And there was Son 1.   A little urchin with a cropped fringe, dimples, bright eyes and a dazzling smile, in an oversized 1980s acrylic blazer.   Eating a chocolate cookie and listening to Peter Pan all the way home.

1.  Darkest Hour 

2.  A Kind Of Blue

3.  White Teeth

Son 2 aged 17m started crying. I looked at the clock. Just before 6am.  It wasn’t really crying.  It was shouting.  Loud, intermittent pre-vocal blasts.  Getting louder and louder. Standing up in his cot, hands hooked over the rail.  I got him up, changed his nappy and gave him a drink of water.  We got past Son 1 aged 4y 5m’s bedroom without waking him and went downstairs to get the drinks and snacks.  It was 5am.  On the positive side, we didn’t have a rush to get to Nursery.  

Nursery.  All the Nursery and Reception children were in their own clothes, in their favourite colours.  All except one.  How do the other Mothers know this?  Every other little child except Son 1, decked out in civvies.  “Oh Navy’s a lovely colour, it’s a kind of blue,” sang out the class teacher as we arrived.  I simply do not know where the communication loop is.  There is a tiny book of dates they hand out at the start of each term.  But that just gets sucked into our Paperwork Vortex where it is probably still spinning, weightless.  They send letters about Parents’ Evenings, and class photos.  Nope. Genuinely baffled.  I picked Son 1 up early for a dentist’s appointment.  The children were clustering for photos in their various colour groups.  The reds were being taken as I arrived.  The blues were rounded up.  1 sent Son 1 over, and he sat cross-legged in the middle of the front row. As the lady said.  Navy’s a kind of blue.

The Dentist was a Good Thing.  I’d pictured the Dentist staring into Son 1’s gaping mouth and spotting craters bombed out by raisins, chocolate, fruit juice and bedtime milk.  Ting ting ting with his little metal proddy thing.  “They’re fine Son 1, what a good boy, would you like a sticker?”  He did me, I was also fine.  The hygienist had a space, did I want go down now?  Yes I did.  Unfortunately poor Son1, who’d already waited for the Dentist for 25 toyless minutes, had reached his limits. Prone in the Big Chair, goggles on, bib on, mouth full of cutlery and teeth getting sandblasted, dug out and polished, I had Son 1 crawling on top of me and lying with his head on my tummy.  “Does it hurt?” he asked. No, said the hygienist, as I couldn’t speak.  At bedtime I said “Were you frightened Mummy was getting hurt?” He nodded sadly.  So I gave him a flash of my sparkling new smile.