1.  Pushing Boundaries

2.  Pushing In

3.  Pushy Mother

A Very Grim Weather Forecast.  Wet. Really, Really, Wet. But clearing up Later On.  We decided our planned Bird Park trip could go ahead, but we would need to leave early. The Man helped us get out.  0930, in our macs just to go from the house to the car, double parked outside.  The house phone rang. The Wednesday Mum.  She forgot. We’re picking up another family and splitting them between us.  OK. We drove round and round looking for the right road.  And found a Post Lady to help. We found the right house.  Wednesday Mum gave us Best Friend to take, so she could take the Mother and two daughters in the other family.  Off we went.   Pouring with rain. The road we needed closed with miles and miles of diversions. And Son 1 aged 4y 10m and Best Friend giggling away as they yelled “Poo Poo Pants!”  and “Wee Wee Head!”  at each other. Son 2 aged 22m sat in his seat yelling “Bart!” (= fart) and laughing his head off.  I will remember not to be disappointed if this is as good as conversation in our 75% male household gets from now on. 

The Bird Park. Soft Play, on a hideously wet day in the summer holidays.  Every table full.  Wet macs, jackets and kagoules over the back of every chair.  Son 1 and Best Friend ran off, I plopped Son 2 in the baby area and found a table. I put our macs and bags on it, went to play with Son 1 and still had to fend off an older woman who snuck on the one seat I hadn’t baggsed.   The others took a while coming.  Son 1 and I had a good play. He stood on top of the jets, all his fine, long, blond hair blown vertically upwards. With his tee shirt full of air and a great delighted smile on his face.  We played with the balls, we climbed, we went down slides.  Son 1 was a pain. He spent the morning playing  a Fierce Game.  Growling and roaring at everyone. Eventually he fell out with Best Friend.  He roared, Best Friend lashed out. He cried.  So all three of us went to play on the Big Uns equipment together.  

And then we all went outside.  In our macs, the rain drumming down, no-one else out. Son 1 dropped his Knobbly Bobbly ice lolly.  I gave him 85p and told him to go back in and buy another one. He managed.  Amazing what motivation can do.  We saw owls, and otters. Son 2 just said “Fish.”  “Fish.” “Fish,” as we wound our way down to the farm area. He studied the fish - great fat koi - for as long as we’d let him.  We looked at the rabbits and the guinea pigs. Outside we fed rabbits and sheep with goat food. Son 1 was letting big sheep lap the pellets off his hands; Son 2 was still just a bit scared. There was a Daddy, Mummy and Baby donkey. Son 1 and I wondered if The Man would let us have a baby donkey.  Son 2 hung on the wire sides of the hen houses.  At penguin feeding time the other Wednesday MOther took her two boys back in. Not us. Son 1 sat on the side of the penguin pool trying to get picked to feed them. Son 2 cried with tiredness and pressed his face in to mine.  When it came to choosing the children, Son 1 didn’t get a look in. “Just get down,” I said, giving him a nudge over. Inside the penguin pen, he turned to me. “Did they say it’s all right?”  ”Yes it’s all right,” I said. “Did they say so?”  How well that child knows me. The keeper passed him and told him to come along, olonking a bucket of fish down beside him.  Son 1 and his new friends hurled them into the pool.   Next to Son 2 and me, two children behind the wall stood with their hands up.  We went round the pool to watch Son 1.  “Pin Gin” said Son 2.

1.  Order, Order

2.  Brains And Brawn

3.  Root A Toot

A good night.   A day off. A slow start. Son 1 aged 4y and 6m wanted me to read Mr Men books to him.  He and The Man seemed to think he was banned from telly this morning.  He wasn’t.  But I wasn’t going to let on.  We were still in our pyjamas when Wonder Nanny arrived.  She is very impressed with The Man’s new coat hooks and shelves in the hall, and with the new shelves in Son 2 aged 18m’s room.   There are no longer piles of about 100 books on the floor in Son 1’s room.  I never minded, I thought it added a certain don-ish quality to the place.  But apparently it was Not Normal.   Always, the people who can’t see mess are married to people who see mess when it isn’t there.   For the same reasons bees can’t fly.  

We went to the Bird Park.  We all love it, and I wanted to go places before the schools break up.  “Shall we have a little play and then have some lunch and then see the animals?” said Son 1.  That’s what we always do.  The dear mite and his love of routine again.  (As I often say about The Man.)  Son 2 can go down the baby slide sitting up now.  Son 2 picks up his own mat for the Big Slide.  Son 2 climbs up slopes, climbs up stairs, totters through, tried to get over… anything Son 1 does.  Son 1 is not a fan of Big Slides, but loves doing circuits including a smaller slide, and loved us all doing it together.  I am so glad Son 2 is such a little bruiser.  I always used to think Son 1’s physical caution was related to me being too over-protective.  Along came Son 2, and with one bound Mummy is free…

After lunch Son 2 was fainting with tiredness, so we put him in the Big Pram and wheeled him round to the birds.  He lasted as far as the otters before demanding to get out again. And then he walked down to the farm, hoo-hooing at owls, squawking at parrots and saying “Bye bye” to the cockatoos.  We fed goats and sheep, and sang Baa Baa Black Sheep to the black sheep with the black tongue. Son 2 baa-ed at them.  I put him back in the pram and he finally nodded off.   Son 1 prowled and ran round to the penguins.  Sat demurely on the wall. Got picked to feed them.  On the way back we stopped off at a big M and S looking for shoes.  We finally found a pair of flashing trainers that fit. Not quite what I wanted, but Son 1 is happy.

1.  Cookery

2.  Photography

3.  A Walk In The Park

Yesterday’s Tesco run included a marked-down 74p Christmas biscuit decoration set.  From the first, Son 1 aged 4y 3m wanted only to Ice The Biscuits.  “After breakfast,” I said.  He ate three bites of pancakes and declared breakfast over.  Originally we thought we’d do it when Son 2 aged 15m was having his nap.  But Son 1 couldn’t wait that long.  So we had one big boy in a Thomas apron, and a baby in a highchair, both with biscuits on plates in front of them.  Son 1 took the red icing squirter and made a start on Santa.  Son 2 watched him carefully, and then took an idle bite of his Christmas Pudding.   We squirted green on together.  We gave Son 2 a Rudolf.  Son 1 scattered white sugar stars three-deep over his biscuits.  I turned back to Son 2. He’d bitten a hole in Rudolf.  And a blank Christmas Tree.  We iced.  We scattered.  Son 1 devoured a Christmas Tree.  Son 2 licked all the squirty icing off the Christmas Pudding.  Son 1 watched him.  And then licked all the squirty icing off his Rudolf.

I put two chairs together in the corner of the kitchen to make a little raised playpen for Son 2 while I’m getting food.  He stands on the seat of one, opens the cutlery drawer and plays with the baby spoons and forks.  And the vegetable peeler.  I made lunch.  Son 1 arrived, demanding to know how to use our digital camera.  I showed him.  We now have about 40 pictures of Bag-of-Flour-on-Worktop, Mummy’s-Leg Cupboard-Front,  Kitchen-Floor.  Son 1 thought it was fantastic. 

Son 2 only napped for about 30 minutes in the morning, and was dropping with exhaustion after lunch.  So I thought I’d take both boys out, give The Man a break,  push The Pram till Son 2 slept  and then come back and let Son 1 watch some telly.  We pushed The Pram to The Park.  Son 1 shinnied up the slide ladder.  Son 2 clamoured to be let out.  He went on the slide, he went on the swings, laughing and chortling.  After a very good half hour, I put Son 2 back in The Pram and off we went to the shops.  He stayed awake.  Son 1 was asking to ride on The Pram.  In M and S, they were both crying for food and whining with fatigue.  I rang The Man.  Son 1 rode home on his shoulders.  Son 2 stayed awake the whole time.