1.  Sod’s Law

2.  Law Courts

3.  The First Rule Of Parenting

Both boys decided to have a lie in this morning.  On holiday, when we had nothing to do except Find The Family in the cafe at 11, whenever… 6am.  On Saturday, flying back, clear out of the villa by 1030… we had to wake them up.  This morning, needing to get Son 1 aged 4y 7m to Nursery… needing to get me to the Big Town by 9am… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.   I had breakfast, showered, sorted holiday washing, did my hair and make up, made snacks… still nothing.  I eventually got Son 1 up with the promise of Ice Age 2 in the lounge.  And Son 2 aged 20m finally stirred when I marched into his room braying Good Morning and pulling down the blanket and blackout blind.

We got out in plenty of time for Nursery.  All very pleased to see Son 1, and took a delighted interest in the holiday photos we’d printed off.   Then I went off to Court for Jury Service.  Rather baffled about whether I can say anything about it at all.  We never got into court, there was lots of waiting around and then we were all sent home.  Is that ok?  And  hilarious male-female split while we were all loafing around waiting for anyone to want us.  All the men sat singly aloof, reading papers, out of sight of the women.  Who sat on two tables, drinking coffees, trashing the lunch menu, comparing jobs, where we all lived and how many children we had, and what they want to do when they leave school.

I picked up Son 1 a bit early, which was nice, and we headed home.   Son 2 had had a quiet day with Wonder Nanny.  She moved house while we were away, which is all part of her spectacular marvellousness.  A Very Good Thing.  Too complicated to think about if she’d needed time off when I can’t get out of Jury Service and The Man is away…    One of our neighbours is an elderly nun who can’t hear very well.  Which means in 8 years I’ve had very few conversations with her. And they’ve all been started by me. Sister X stopped me yesterday to tell me how lovely Wonder Nanny is with the children and what a very sweet girl she is. When Son 1 and I came back today I watched Son 2 in the back garden for a while.  He was playing with the water in the sand pit.  Wonder Nanny, sitting on the steps watching, said something to him and he waddled over to her.  Then he waddled back again, with a Shane Warne-style strip of suntan lotion down his nose.  He went back to her, and again, returned to the sandpit, this time with a stripe under his lip to protect his scar.  Outside, I protested it wasn’t fair.  “He never stands still for sun lotion.  He’s like a bat in a barrel when I try!”  Wonder Nanny smiled. ”They never behave for their parents.”

1.  Daemon

2.  Pumpkin Soup

3.  Fireworks

A tough morning after a tough night before.  The Man conceded that after devoting weekends, evenings and agreed time off to work, he could spend a bit of time helping me today.  Maybe the fact that I drove 15 miles home from the Office last night in the pitch black with just my sidelights on, and I reversed the car into a barrier helped him realise I was suffering.  He took the boys to the Museum to see the Wednesday Friends while I lay in bed and watched telly.  Of course I couldn’t cope.  The Western World was wheeling cartwheels but I ‘m a full-time working mother and on my day off I wanted my baby.     

I rattled an empty pushchair down to the Museum, and joined everyone just as the Business Mother was scooping up the children to say goodbye.  Son 2 aged 13m clapped and laughed as soon as he saw me.  Son 1 aged 4y 1m soared off somewhere with The Man.  Back home Nanna came round.  I made pumpkin soup, with caramelised onion and a roasted pumpkin straight out the veg box.  “Yuk,” said Son 1.  I piled it into a cabbage-shaped tureen Younger Sister bought me in the days I had time to select witty serving dishes.  It worked.  Son 1 agreed it was The Best He’d Ever Tasted, and ate a grown up bowl.  Son 2 just ate and ate and ate.  The Man wasn’t doing the pumpkin soup, and made himself leftover chicken with pasta and pesto.  Son 2 ate that too.

I wanted to go the fireworks.  Son 2 was clearly exhausted, and there was some discussion about Nanna babysitting while the three of us went out.  Son 1 cuddled Son 2 and cuddled me: ” I want us all to go.”  We took a taxi up to the display.  We started talking to the firemen outside. “You’re going to miss it if you don’t hurry,” said one. “They wouldn’t have said that if you were 18 and blonde,” said The Man.  Fab fireworks.  We’d taken the Big Pram so Son 2 could sleep in it while we all walked back.  Son 1 decided he was going to sit in it.  “Put it down, I want to go to sleep.”  So I did.  So he did.  Son 2 fell asleep in the sling.  Our pram is 0 - 3.  Our sling is 0 - 1.  We had a four year old in the pram, and a 13m old in the sling.  So we stopped off in a pub for a drink.  And had a great time.  Till Son 2 woke up, as he always does, and we walked home through The Town, with the skies flashing and explosions echoing across the evening.

1.  Treasure

2.  Biff and Beaujangles

3.  Countdown

A friend came with her son, aged 2.75.  She’d made Son 1 aged 4 a treasure chest for his birthday, and was setting up a treasure hunt in the back garden so he could find it.  She came round as I was putting Son 2 aged 13m down for his sleep… and while Son 1 had fallen asleep while watching telly upstairs.  He was hot and bothered when he woke, but recovered after Calpol and a drink.  Son 2 woke, and all three boys went outside. Son 1 found the clues, found the treasure chest and has gone to sleep with it under his bed.

The elder two boys started ricocheting off the walls after too much treasure chest chocolate and marshmallows.  We all walked into The Town, said our goodbyes to our friends and went to the dinghy park to watch the crane lifting boats out of the water.  The Man knows how to show a girl a good time.  We had coffee looking over the marina - hence Biff and Beaujangles.  Back home I played peekaboo with Son 2 round the high chair while Son 1 - who really isn’t feeling well- laid on the floor upstairs and watched telly.  Son 2 clearly asked for “na na” when he saw one.  He stuffed his face at teatime; Son 1 ate almost nothing.

We put the boys to bed.  In a manner of speaking, Son 2 is still going down on the double bed and crying every time he wakes up without a grown up beside him.  I am cutting back on the bedtime feed, with a view to stopping entirely in a week or so’s time.  I feel very strange about it.  Pleased I’ve managed to feed him this long.  Sad that we’re leaving that special him-and-me thing behind.  Proud I did it - it’s been crap.  But the fact is I won’t feed another child.  And I would of course love to.  Anyway.  We are indulging Son 2’s need for an adult while I move him off the breast.  Then we’ll leave it a week or so and get him back in his cot.  Somehow.  And of course that will be as easy as it sounds.  

I got out for a run tonight, and it made me feel much better.  The moon was nearly full, so I ran up to the top of The Headland. Not all the way round, in recognition of the fact I haven’t been out for more than a week.  But it was a lovely evening, crisp and cold, with The Town full of life as I ran through.  There are street lights only half way up the Headland, so about 400 yards was in pitch black.  It was harder running in the darkness - even with moonlight - than it used to be because there are some very bright lights from the docks which are too far away to light the path, but so bright they stop your eyes adjusting.  I really must defeat my Inner Robbie and Just Go, four times a week.  I have such a good time when I’m running, I sort out all kinds of stuff in my head and, in principle, it will get the weight off too.  Although on the way back I called in to The Spar and bought chocolate and crips.     

1. Arms and legs

2. Lift off

3. Calpol junkie

Woke to a room with no sound of Son 2 aged 9m and what felt like many arms and legs wrapped round me.  I was in the Big Bed, with Son 1 aged 3 and a half, who moved in while I was asleep.  Son 2 woke when I went to bed, and I gave him Ibuprofen - I’ve been wandering around the Mumsnet chat again and saw someone suggest it for teething.  I took him into bed with me and he went nuts.  Again, I just had to leave him in the cot.  It must be the milk. He’s exhausted,  wants to feed himself to sleep and I won’t let him.  He slept from about 0030 through till well past 7am…    Oh look at those hopes, bobbing around on the ceiling.   

Getting two boys out to nursery on my own on time (ish) is definitely a Good Thing.  It feels like a production line, though, and yet again I feel sorry for Son 2 who sits there watching his mother tear around in a bewildering blur.  Pack up lunch, snacks and medicine for Son 2. Milk feed, shower. Dress one, dress the other, dress me, hair, make up.  Breakfast for one. Breakfast for the other.   Leave every worktop covered in bottles, plates, knives, fruit peelers, cups and tubs.  Toys and bits of breakfast coating the kitchen floor.  Get briefcase, nursery bag, lunch bag, M and S bag with my lunch in it and put them in car.  Put boys in the car. Drive off.  Forgot Son 2’s milk.      

The production line again for tea and bathtime. I took up a cup of tea for me, milk for Son 1, a syringe of calpol for Son 2. Or I thought I did.  After I’d bathed Son 2, I sat down to give him a feed and noticed the syringe was empty.  Oh, I thought.  This must be this morning’s. We’ve obviously got two, and I’ve left the full one downstairs.  And then realised what the other explanation was.  “Where’s  Son 2’s calpol?”  A sly smile.  “In my tummy going down to my legs.”

1.  Asleep

2.  Curry

3.  Flowers

Another dreadful night with Son 2 aged 8m.  Cried in the evening, cried in the night.  Cried for me.  He was obviously in some kind of distress, so I tried sleeping with him  - as he’s been so good about not trying to feed.  He just could not stop crying or roaming around the bed.  So in the end he went in the cot, screaming so much you could hear he’d strained his voice,  and I went downstairs for a cup of tea.  And he went to sleep. 

 Wonder Nanny and The Man think Son 2 is teething.  He’s certainly not himself, poor thing.  I was upstairs giving him another feed after bedtime when The Man was making curry for tea.  The Man is being nice.  He has to go on a week-long business trip on Thursday.  He will miss the taster day for Son 1 aged 3 and a half’s new school.  So much for having a week off work because he’s so tired.  Being positive of course, we have both booked a week off in July.  And I have got Wonder Nanny to help on Thursday.   

 There are flowers in the blue vase in memory of the one we lost.  Who would have been one yesterday.  If he’d arrived on his due date.  If he’d made it.  I always think of him as a boy.  I don’t know how I feel - we wouldn’t have Son 2 if the other one had been born because he was conceived next time round.  But the anniversary bothers me, and I’m glad I remember.  Things do get better.   

1. Sleeping face

2. Driving

3. Packing for school

Four nights sleeping through and Son 2 aged 8m screamed all evening and most of the night.  No idea why.  At four thirty - nice red tinge coming up over the horizon, oh how I try to be positive and enjoy these moments I would not have without my children - I went down to relieve The Man.  I decided I’d feed Son 2 at 5am.  He just rolled over next to me and went into a very light, I’m-going-to-pinch-mummy’s-skin-so-she-can’t-move-away sleep.  Leaving me lying next to him, peering at his little round face in the gloom, thinking what a privilege it is to lie beside a sleeping baby.

Drove over to The City today for a meeting with my colleagues from The Nearest Office.  It is, as ever, always nice to see them.  And of course it was well worth going.  I had a good drive, the sun was out, the sky was blue… and every forecourt had a queue.  Out-of-character current affairs reference there.   The only snag is, it’s a three-hour round trip and I still have to make up the travelling time somehow.

Son 1 aged three and a half has a taster day for his new nursery on Thursday.  This is the Posh, Outstanding but Inconvenient one we are sending him to in September.  He decided to pack everything he will need.  He first filled a Bookstart treasure box with books, comics, crayons, wooden animals, his Fireman Sam suitcase, a wind-up fluffy dog toy and a Postman Pat toy sword.  He then started upstairs, tipping out every piece of every toy in his room into three mighty piles. The Man put all the upstairs stuff away while Son 1 was in the bath, and he had hysterics.  About as distraught as he gets.  Methinks Son 1 may be finding the idea of a new nursery a bit overwhelming.  His last words as I went through the door after saying goodnight were “Mummy promise you won’t put my school stuff downstairs away.”  Oh little one what are you trying to say to us?

1. No.

2. Tommy Thumb

3. Down to the River

We didn’t go to him.  Left him grizzling in his cot.  And Son 2, aged 8m,  went back to sleep and slept through till 0630.  Neither of us knows how long he cried - I intended to stay awake till he stopped and then go and see if he was ok.  And I fell asleep.  The Man was in with him when he started, so tiptoed upstairs to the Big Bed… and fell asleep.  After yesterday morning, when nothing, but nothing would stop him crying… and after a string of disturbed evenings, broken nights and early morning waking, we just said no, we can’t do it any more.  Agreed we wouldn’t go into him… and then I woke to the pitter patter of Son 1 aged 3 and a half heading for the Big Bed.  I had to send The Man straight down to check Son 2 was still alive.  I’ve no idea what we’ve proved, especially as I think underneath it all he’s  an anxiously-separated baby, who’s had two disrupted weeks, spends four out of five days in childcare, has sore teeth and just wants his mum.

Son 1 has a new book of nursery rhymes given to him by Godfather 2 and Younger Sister.  As I was feeding Son 2 to sleep this evening, from the next room I heard The Man singing: “Tommy Thumb, Tommy Thumb, Where are  you?  Here I am, here I am, how do you do.” The Man never sings - he can’t remember any words ever -  “She Loves Me, Yeah Yeah, Yeah” and “Two Little Boys had Two Little Boys”  are both genuine attempts.  He was trying to duck reading yesterday “Mummy will read it, she’s good at reading, I’m not as good as Mummy” and in instant response got an adoring “You are Daddy, you are, you can do it!”  The one force on earth that could have got The Man singing from a nursery rhyme book… 

Ran down to the bridge across the river this evening.  The wind’s still northerly, so it was harder work on the way down than on the way back.  Got seen again by a friend who lives down the road “you make me feel guilty.”  Although as she was on her way back from rowing club I think she can let herself off.  An invitation for Son 1 to her little girl’s party.  I can’t believe she’s nearly three.  

1.  High tide

2.  Asleep

3.  Tea party

We are fantastically lucky to be less than a mile from the beach and this blog always helps me to remember that.  Today though was hard because it was scorching.  Son 2 aged 8m was at Richter scale 6 for 45 mins before we went out and my skull felt like a sheet metal worker had been trying to flatten it out from the inside.   Son 1 aged 3 and a half wanted to take the beach tent Nanna brought.  In an ideal world I would have put the tent up and looked after Son 2 inside.  But I couldn’t get the tent up, look after Son 2 - who, having used up every calorie in his system on his screaming fit, was starving, - and fend off 5 small boys who instantly started runnning off with the poles and pegs.   Son 1 though was in transports.  Up to the pockets of his shorts in the sea (sunsuit still in the toy bag),  playing very well with the others, digging, collecting, mixing… and then back to the old game of beating the approaching sea with seaweed to try to stop it coming in, and shrieking with laughter when it didn’t work.  Son 2 ate his lunch, ate sand, ate stones, ate some leftover sandwich one of the other children left in the pop-up tent I parked him in.  Our physio friend thinks he’s maybe a bit young to be diagnosed with Scoliosis.  The water was turquoise, and there were people swimming.  Next time I’ll bring a costume, I thought, remembering last summer when I was fat as a hippo and cooled off in the sea.  But it was so mercilessly hot that we didn’t last much past lunchtime.

Back home I had two boys asleep at once.    I had last night’s leftovers for lunch.   I looked at the washing, the cleaning, the toys and the mess.  And then joined Son 2 on the big double bed and  had nearly an hour’s sleep.

Nanna came round just after we all woke up.  The Man was barbecueing.  So all I had to do was feed Son 2 (Don’t Want That.  Want Hot Milk.  Only louder.)    Son 1 was beside himself with excitement.  The Man shook down the astroturf (Concreted yard.  Very child unfriendly.  Got it on the net.) and collected about two buckets full of sand that Son 1 has just slung around from his sand table.     Tea was late and chaotic.  Son 2 refused leftovers from breakfast and wriggled,  chewing bits of white bread and throwing them on the floor.  Son 1 helped himself to a spoonful of salad, ate a couple of bits of pepper, and then carefully dragged a large strip of lettuce through his tomato sauce and lowered it into his mouth from high above his upturned face.   

1. At least

2. Wassap

3. I don’t want to go to nursery

God we had a rough night.  Son 2 aged 8m woke up at around 2 and I went in to him.  Wrong move.  He wanted to feed himself back to sleep, and I didn’t want to.  And he roared and roared.  I tried everything. Cuddling him, holding him, sitting with him, lying him down beside me in the bed, gaviscon, calpol… in the end we put Son 1 aged 3 and a half upstairs with The Man.  I stayed with Son 2, but no matter what I did - or didn’t do - he screamed and screamed. So I went downstairs and made a cup of tea, and when I came back he’d howled himself to sleep.  So the positive thing is, at least I didn’t lose it at any point.  And he did, in the end go back to sleep.  But it was awful.  We’ve decided that if he wakes up again we’re just going to leave him.  It’s just too hard trying to get him back to sleep.

He woke us all up again at 0630.  I fed him, and let him stand up on the floor to wind him.  While he was swaying around,  Son 1 came blearily down the stairs.  As soon as Son 2 saw him he did his mad I-love-Son1 cackle, and Son 1 cackled back, and they had a hug.  Son 2 never stops watching Son 1.  Son 1 always plays up for his audience.

Son 1 didn’t want to go to nursery.  Why not?  I asked.  I just don’t, he said.   I like going to the Trade Show and going to the swimming pool and going out on the boat and seeing our friends and going on holiday.  So do I darling, so do I.  

1. Cleaning the car

2. The cot

3. The beach to ourselves

The Man and I are barely lucid.  Son 2 aged 8m continues his “WHERE ARE YOU ALL?” starting just before 5.  I cracked at 0530 and went downstairs and fed him.  The Man has hung an old blanket over the window because I think the problem’s the light.  He thinks the problem is Son 2’s teeth.  Today Son 1 aged 3 and a half slept in despite the noise.  So before 8am I  put  Son 2 in his pram, walked him up and down the terrace and he fell asleep.  And then The Man got the extension lead out and I… vaccuumed the car out.   It now looks like other peoples’ before they clean them… but it’s a start.

Son 1 got up at gone 8 and said that as he’d slept through, he had enough energy to go to the Trade Show today.  Very disappointed that it’s not on yet, and went off next door for breakfast.  I put Son 2 in his cot so he could hang on to the side and stand up.  He loved it.  Screams blue murder if he has to lie down, but a smile as big as his face for standing up.  He’s twice done a very funny baby leg-stomp when he’s fallen over or his legs have buckled.  Sheer temper, and hilarious now at 8 months old, but I do wonder whether we are in for stormy times as he gets bigger.

Down to the beach to see our friends.  The tide going out, and no-one else there.  Son 1 clunked instantly in to playing with the others.  Son 2 slept for a few minutes and then was very happy playing on the sand and having his lunch.  Our friends said how much they’d enjoyed the christening.  The couple who run the beach cafe are selling up.  Can’t help thinking that it’ll be £3 lattes in its next incarnation, instead of 40p mini-milks.  The wind was onshore and very cold.  I had to retrieve Son 1’s beach ball, and left Son 2 with one of the other mums.  “If you just feed him Cheerios, he’ll be your best friend.”  When I came back her 22-month-old was feeding him the Cheerios.  So sweet.