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. Siesta 

2. Fiesta

3. Blessed

Son 2 aged 11m slept through the night.  Tum ti tum.  He’s been in a 1 Tog sleeping bag the whole summer.  Because he cannot overheat or He Will Die A Cot Death.   He’s pooed in one and the other is in the wash so last night he was in a 2.5 Tog.  And didn’t murmer.  Tum ti tum.  Maybe the cry I thought meant “Where are you all?  Come Baaaaaaaack” meant “Bring warm plump parents I am freeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing.”    

There is another Festival in The Town, the roads are closed, the flags are out, there are stalls and music everywhere, so we off we went  to meet the Wednesday Friends.  Son 1 aged 3 y 11m walked all the way through town in his Captain Hook outfit.  “And why did he get that?” said one mother, witheringly.  Because Mummy needed to see if it fitted (= couldn’t wait to see what he looked like in it.)  And was then unable to get it off him. The children played in the Museum; we went into the Marquee so I could feed Son 2.  A swing band started up, Son 2 really enjoyed it and kept pointing.  We lost a child, we found him.  Son 1 went in The Big Pram and fell asleep.  Son 2 was in the sling - another advantage to his being small. I walked them back and Son 2 stayed awake all the way.  At home he walked up and down the kitchen on Son 1’s ELC wooden trolley.  With his grapefruit smile and his hearty chuckle. 

I ran round the Headland tonight.  I went through The Town so I could see what was going on for the Festival.  And I guessed the Bookshop would stay open late and I wanted to get a couple of last-minute presents for Son 2.  It was gloomy, grey, windy and wet.  I wore tracksters and a long sleeved top - bought by the pre-children me in Fort William, on my 40th, “to wear when the baby is here to get my figure back.”  But I was over-hot, so I think I’ll go back to shorts.  The Headland was misty and drizzly with a wind at the Far Point that slammed into you like a train.  I remembered the evening I walked round it crying in the darkness after the miscarriage.  And I remembered the evenings BC when I ran round it in the pitch black, with the occasional sweep of the lighthouse on the Headland Opposite the only light.  And then I got home, and we wrapped Son 2’s presents, and toasted him with a glass of Cava, because the champagne wasn’t cold enough.  We’ve done the first year, and we have another heavenly child.

1.  Are we there yet?

2.  Tick Tock.

3.  The Ball Pool.

We are members of the local Little Zoo.  Free entry all year, but also, one free entry to the Big Zoo, 100 miles away.  The Big Zoo has rhinos and crocodiles and a cheetah and a gorilla and giraffes.  Our friends - with the 2 and a half year old - are camper-vanning it that way, and so an arrangement was made.  Off we set at 0815.  On the advice of Wonder Nanny I packed all the food last night, so we were able so swan off sedately. Sort of.  Son 1 aged 3y 10m is currently watching Shrek 2.  Where Donkey “are we there yet?”s all the way to Far Far Away without drawing breath.  Son 1 tried it, a perfect impersonation, for many, many miles indeed.  We ignored him.  The effort, as it says in Matilda, very nearly killed us.  We got there at 1040, unloaded the car into the Big Pram and the Buggy, and saw our friends arrive.  The car park was a bit of a… er… zoo… with cars coming in from all angles.  The queues to get in were like football crowds.  But they’d pre-paid, and we had our Little Zoo membership tickets, so we fronted our way in to the only quiet gate.     

Reptile house, cup of tea, walk round the gardens, peer at monkeys and then the  crocodile house. We loved the crocodile house.  Son 1 aged 3y 10m is pirate-mad so crocodiles figure large in most of our games, and there was a model crocodile head with an alarm clock in it.  You pressed the top of the clock to stop it ticking and the crocodile ROOOOAAARRED. Son 1 was terrified, but we thought it was great. Son 1 and his Little Friend were very good value; Son 2 aged 11m was in the sling, which he always enjoyed.  There are advantages to his being small - I’m sure we’d given up on the sling by this age with Son 1. 

Son 1, unfed and knackered, was, it has to be said, a serial delinquent most of the way round.  A very bad influence on Little Friend.  Then he found an under-fives play barn.  We parked the prams, ordered coffees, they charged off.  I played with Son 2 in the ball pool and he loved it.  Laughing, ball-surfing, bouncing the balls, bouncing himself.  Bouncing on top of a very big lunch and a heck of a lot of milk.  I resolved that if he was sick I would just cover it up with green and yellow and red and blue plastic balls and tiptoe out.  He wasn’t.  I changed him in the disabled loo.  There was an adult changing mat in there.  Moaning done for the day for me from that moment on.