1.  Louder Than Words

2.  A Perfect Lunch

3.  Pat And Peter

Three years to the weekend since Son 1 aged 4y 4m was christened.  He was further forward in his speech than Son 1 aged 16m. When the water was splashed on his forehead he said “No, no, no.”   Son 2 can’t do yes and no.  But this morning,  I called across the room: “Son 2, have you done a poo?”  And he looked at me and did his tiny-fast movements nodding thing. He did indeed need a new nappy…

We went shopping in The Big Town.   Son 2 had stayed awake all the way there and was barely conscious. Choice.  Push the pram, have him fall asleep for a very short time, and then have to stop and get him some food Or Else.  Give him lunch at 1145 and let him fall asleep for a longer snooze.  We went to a cafe/bar.  The waitress understood the situation perfectly.  She slapped the children’s lunch order in before taking the rest of our order, and brought out 2 x sausage and chips in minutes. The children behaved impeccably.  The first stress-free family lunch we have had.  We shopped, and called into see Son 2’s Godmother, who isn’t well.  In her lounge was Son 2’s thirteen year old Godbrother, six girls and two boys.  The girls were making tutus for a party.  The Godmother had no idea who any of them were.  But she says at least she knows where Godbrother is.

Back home, the boys played with the Thomas Wooden Railway.  We have a lot of this, and Son 1 has always been a bit ambivalent.  Not many Pirates in Thomas.  But Son 2 loves it, which means Son 1 is also playing with it more often.  I made broccoli in cheese and onion sauce with pasta for tea.  They wolfed it.  Son 2 had fourths.  They got down from the table.  I read the paper and drank wine.  Son 1 came back, perching himself on the chair next to me, and playing with a Postman Pat van, and a plastic Postman Pat and Jess.  “I believe in cats, I believe in cats, I believe in cats.”  I looked up.  “What’s Postman Pat saying to Jess?” “I believe in cats.” “Why?”  “Because Jess has died.”  The pervasive Peter Pan again.  If you say you don’t believe in fairies,  one dies.

1.  Little Yellow Book

2.  Cuckoo

3.  Late Lambs

Son 2 aged 15m enjoyed his books this morning. We do five if we can… today we got up to seven before he decided to crawl off towards the bathroom.  He pointed and “Am-ma”-d at the book shelf, and then tottered over, reached up, and picked his favourite animal picture book.  Baby Bright.  We sit there flipping through pictures of a horse, a fox, an owl, a parrot, guinea pigs, a zebra, a lion, a dog, a penguin.  Son 2 loves the fish.  Am-ma is his current word for… everything really.  Milk. Mummy.  Fetch that. I dropped that.  I want to switch the light on and off.  He is also doing Uh-Oh if he drops something, and Ah-lo for hello.  Various snap snap quack quack noises for crocodiles and ducks.  Just yesterday and today I’ve noticed him trying to make new sounds.  Maybe that’s why he falls over when he’s walking.

Sickness has gripped The Office, so it was intense and fast-paced with every minute over-filled.    A long, hard day.  I was so late back.  Boys in pyjamas, playing, staying up waiting for me.  Son 2 was legging it for the top flight of stairs as I came up towards the landing.  “Cuckoo,” I said, from the stairs below him, peering through the bannisters.  ”Ah-lo,” he said and carried on trying to escape upstairs.  I took him up while I changed.  He grapped a remote, climbed on a toybox and tried to switch the telly on.  “Am-ma,” he pointed “Am-ma.”  I picked him up and took him downstairs and he launched into a high-Richter tantrum.  I couldn’t cuddle him, I could barely hold him. Plank boy, horizontal in my arms, head thrown back, heart pounding in his little boy chest. I got him back with his animal book, but then when we stopped reading, he tried paddying again.  I put him in the cot and he passed out within minutes.  Overtired.  The  vaccination on Thursday. He’s just not himself.

I’ve changed the name of the blog.   I have a colleague who’s worked in South Africa.   Way before the boys, I remember him talking about an expression there for a child born to an older mother.  A Late Lamb.  It came back to me after Son 1 aged 4y 2m was born.  I like it.  A Spring in the Autumn feel.  Like my boys.

1.  Stirrings

2.  Back to School

3.  Sprint Finish

It was hell getting Son 2 aged 13m down in the cot last night - took more than half an hour - but he stayed in till nearly 6am, which I am counting as a second night sleeping through.  If he makes it tonight I will start seeing if I can put him down in the cot, rather than leaving him lying on a double bed with pillows either side.  He was hungry and he was thirsty.  A clear, definite “Na na” Which he ate in less than five minutes once we were downstairs.  He was brilliant for his books this morning, sitting still for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Well most of it.  As soon as the pages you can stick your fingers in had gone, he was off.  His favourite is still the animals book.  He can now fling his arm up for the elephant, make fish mouth noises and roar like a lion.  There is a little confusion between the noises for a duck’s quack quack and a crocodile’s snap-snap but it’s easily done.  He is also definitely yeh yeh ing, and nnnnnn ing. And Ma Ma has returned, but with considerably more “SORT ME OUT NOW” welly.

We were a bit worried about Son 1 aged 4 y 1m going back to Nursery, because with his two-week half term and his ear infection it’s been three weeks.  He was ok.  He made me park way up the entrance road, and we arrived just as the children were sitting down for the register.  He plonked himself down on the floor and gazed up at the teacher as if I wasn’t there.  Wonder Nanny picked him up and said the teacher had said he’d been very tired in the afternoon.  Again, it’s the playground.  Too noisy.   

Other good things: my computer came back from the mender’s, which will make The Office a bit easier, because I can work in the evenings again, hooray hooray.  We have a number for a chiropodist for The Man’s sore feet.   Wonder Nanny has sent off the registration form for Ofsted.  We’ve accepted a party invitation for Son 1.  “That’s good news, isn’t it Mummy?”  He’s getting the hang of this.  And Son 2 stole the show.  As he was exhausted, I held him under his armpits to let him practise walking - one of his favourite things, and I thought if he did his usual hold-on-to-my-fingers-walk he’d stumble and get fed up.  When he felt the extra support he just sprinted.  Up and down the kitchen like Forest Gump, with me having to do a running, bent-over waddle to keep up with him.  He chortled and squealed and laughed and laughed.  So did Son 1.  I knew we were in for it when he finally walks… it never occurred to me that it will in fact be much worse when he can RUUUUUUUUUUNNNNN.

1.   The night shift 

2.  The Bug. Again.

3. The Finishing Line.

I had a marathon up-every-two-hours night.  Son 1 aged 3y 11m was very unwell yesterday evening, and called and called until I lay down with him.  We tried everything to get his temperature down, Calpol, Ibuprofen, taking his quilt out and putting just the cover on him, putting his fan on… in the end I put him in the Big Bed and he fell asleep so deeply he didn’t even notice when I put the light on and bounced up and down on the bed trying to swat a bluebottle which kept dive-bombing me.  (Got it in the end.)

He was a bit better today, but Son 2 aged 11m has now got The Bug.  High temperature, hacking cough, just wants mum.   I’ve got him to go to sleep on his own in his cot in the day - we’re down to 10 minutes of yelling now.  But not at night.  His whole life I’ve fed him to sleep, and then put him down, comforting him for a bit until he zizzes off.  Now he snaps himself awake the minute I pull the side up, and hollers until we get him.  The Man’s been lying down with him on the double bed to get him to sleep.  Last night I picked him up after a fit of the abdabs and he stretched out a Little Emperor hand to the double bed “I want to lie on that.”  The Man came in.  Son 2 stretched out a Little Emperor hand towards him. “With that.”

But he’s fantastic at the moment.  Another positive ID on the speech; a definite nah- nah when reaching for some banana chunks.   And, for the first time this morning, a pushing away of the breast with his hand.  He’d had most of his feed, and I’ve been cutting him back a bit in the morning, ready for when I start weaning him off on Thursday when he’s one.   I’ve got very mixed feelings about stopping feeding him.  It has been very very hard.  He’s the least snuggly baby on the planet, he still gets terrible wind and he still throws up just when you’re not expecting it.  But this evening he was finally lying there, fast asleep, breast in his mouth, looking so peaceful and content that AT LAST I felt madonna-and-child. I put him gently in his cot, taking care to lay his little downey head as gently as I could, edging my arm out from underneath him.  And then he jacknifed awake and ROOAAAAAAAAAARED for The Man.

1. Understanding banana

2. Understanding humpty.

3. Understanding flumes.

! was giving Son 2 aged 11m his breakfast, and getting ready to take him swimming.  He was in the high chair eating £3 a packet plum and banana porridge with strawberries in it.  I was chatting about his post-swim snack box.  “I’ve put in some milk, I’ve made you some sandwiches.  Would you a like a banana as well?”  A fat little starfish hand with outstretched fingers reached round the highchair towards the fruit bowl.  Yes he would like a banana.  Now.  The £3 a packet porridge was abandoned and he stuffed his little face with leftover banana from the fridge.  

In the pool, am.  Saw our costume-making friend, with 2 and a half year old.  Saw our Wednesday friends, back from their three week holiday at her mum’s.  It rained the whole time.  Saw the boys who’se nanny is Wonder Nanny’s pal - our boys play with them on WN days.  Plus parents.  Their nanny is leaving for a live-in city job with fantastic pay.  Son 2 loves swimming.  A big smile-the-size-of-a-grapefruit.  Splashy hands.  Kicking legs.  Eyes as wide as dinner plates.   “Shall we play Humpty Dumpty?”  Hand claps and squeals. 

Took an exhausted Son 2 back, and picked up Son 1 aged 3y and 10m (The Man is having a bit of a rest from swimming.)  Son 1 played pirates.  He clunked into instant role-play, darting around a poolside bit that divides the baby area from the 50cm shallow end.  I was the crocodile, the sea monster, the mermaid, Wendy.   We bobbed about on a surfboard.  And then went on the flume, about 10 times.  I have perfected the art of slow (sitting up, abs gripping, legs straight, ankles hip-width apart with heels dug in) and fast (lie down and zoooooooooooooooom.)  Son 1 coxed.  “Lie down when we get to the big corner.” “Sit up all the way - lie down!” “Can you sit up nooooooooooooow?”  Me: “Noooooooooooooooooooo.” Splash.        

1. The Man in the Shower 

2. Footprints

3. Reading with Mother

Son 2 aged 9m babbles on.  In the morning, if The Man is having a shower, he has to go to look.  Today I was holding him as he peered upwards at The Man’s wet hair, craned over to watch the water running away into the path, reached out a starfish hand to pat The Man’s back, and blinked as he got sprayed with water.  Saying Da da da da da da.  I get Ma ma ma ma of course, but it’s more in a “hither, wench” or “bring food now”context.

The Man and I are off work this week.  It is Granny and Granddad’s Golden Wedding Anniversary on Saturday.  I got them the most enormous card I could find, which seemed to have a short, fairly neutral bit of wording.  When we opened it out today we realised it has about 10 cloying pages.  Son 1 aged 3 y 9m got out the crayons, then the pens, then the paints.  Then he started painting his foot, because toeprints are fun.  Then a neighbour came round to ask something, and began to help him paint his toes.  Then the Easter box came out, and Son 1 glued fairies onto the card I bought from the boys.   Then he got his fans out to make them for Granny and Granddad.  The Man, who is obsessive compulsive, was slowly disintegrating as each craft activity was added to the junk heap on the kitchen floor.  But he held it together, and patiently helped glue little Valentine’s hearts in place.  It has to be said that Son 1 has made an amazing job of it.  If I’d tried to sit him down and said “Get all your stuff out and do something bumper, and odd and beautiful for Granny and Granddad,” he’d have run off for a sword fight.

Son 2 refused his tea, so I put him on the floor to play while I got ours.  He tummy-shuffled over to the bottom of his highchair, where he lay prone, stuffing his face with abandoned Cheerios.  So I put him back in the highchair, gave him some Cheerios to feed himself and managed to get a few more spoonfuls of nourishing, lovingly-made puree inside him. Then I took him upstairs to do some reading.  I read to Son 1 all the time when he was a baby, and his speech now is amazing.   I’m trying to do the same for Son 2, but it never works because Son 1 always plonks himself inbetween us.   And Son 2’s always got something else he’d rather be doing.  So today I left Son 1 having his pudding, and took Son 2 up for 5 books before his bath.  A success.  That’s Not My Car and Hello Little Bird the faves, followed by Archie’s Animal Friends, Postman Pat’s Peephole book… and then, a long way behind, The Gruffalo.   “What are you droning on about, change that giraffe into a zebra again.”

1.  Ma Ma

2.  Dadd-deee

3.  Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

He said it.  He definitely said it.  Ma Ma.  Son 2, aged  9m, sitting on the bathroom floor, playing with the Duplo trains while I dried myself post-shower, looked up, gazed at me with his big round blue eyes, smiled and said “Ma Ma.”  He was DaDa-ing for ages, and calls Son 1 aged 3 and a half A-Da.  But no mention of mummy at all.  Till today. I love the way language comes.

And goes.  Weirdly enough, since The Man went off on his trip, Son 2 hasn’t said Da Da at all.  The first thing Son 1 said when he woke up was ”Is Daddy home today?”  And then gave a long wail when the answer was no.  He has been playing up a bit - they both have - but it must be hard for them.  I have been making big allowances for Son 1.  Unfortunately  I told him that I knew he was being naughty because he felt funny because Daddy’s away.  And then this morning he was swiping at Son 2’s head, snatching toys off him and trying to tow him along by the ankles.  I picked him up, sat him on my knee and said ”Why are you behaving like this?” He said: “Because my daddy’s not here.”    He doesn’t understand my concerned reasoning… he just thinks he’s got a Get Out of Jail Free card.

In the car on the way back from nursery  Son 1 and Son 2 were laughing and making noises at each other.  Son 2 cackled, Son 1 and I cackled back.  It was great.  Son 2 kept making his cackling noise to see if we would copy him, and when we did he laughed even more.  Which made Son 1 and me laugh even more.   Son 2 was just so excited that he could make Son 1 and I do something together.  A very lovely journey home.