1.  Cold Remedy

2.  Cold Symptoms

3.  Cold Water

Feeling very rough today, so I didn’t go into The Office. I had a pile of work to do at home, and planned to get a kip in the afternoon while Wonder Nanny took the boys out.   Son 2 aged 21m woke, and we did his books session. Son 1 aged 4y 8m joined us. i put the boys in front of the telly a few minutes before Wonder Nanny was due, and went upstairs for a Tea Tree bath. Not enough hot water.  Strange, because we usually only have hot water problems if we’ve had a set of back-to-back showers. 

Wonder Nanny had arranged to go to a playground to see her Nanny friend with the two little boys she looks after. She made a picnic and off the three of them went. For the first time ever, I was glad to see them go. I worked through the morning, and then walked into The Town for a break. Big mistake. I wasn’t up to it and didn’t really  recover. I had lunch and went to bed. I was woken at 3.45pm by a little face beside me: “Hello sweetie, are you all right?”

Wonder Nanny gave the boys their tea and left. And again, they went loopy.  I couldn’t really cope. I tried washing a beaker for Son 2’s bedtime milk. No hot water.  This meant Completely No Hot Water. I rang The Man, who, as this is a Positive Blog, I shall described as Not Very Much Help. i rang a plumber who can’t come till Thursday morning.  I boiled a kettle.  In my 70s childhood our council house had no central heating and no hot water. Boiling a kettle always marked the start of wash time.  Mind you, even then we had an immersion heater.  I have no idea where ours is, and The Man can’t remember.  I washed the boys one at a time in the bathroom sink, Son 2 first.  By the time I came to dry Son 1, I’d had enough.  No hot water, flu-stricken, single mother, and two rowdy, noisy, out-of-control boys.  Son 1 bounced and swirled as I tried to dry him. “Son 1 will you - ” “- Bugger off!” he said, laughing madly, his eyes dancing. He detected my I think I’ll ignore this thought. “Bugger off, bugger off, bugger off!”  “I don’t know where you’ve got that disgusting language,” I said. “Bugger off, bugger off, bugger off,” he said, pointing both fingers at me.  ”Mummy, do you want me to Bugger Off?”  he giggled.  No. But I do want you to shut the f*** up.  I think that thought stayed in my head. I suppose I will find out at bath time tomorrow.

1.   For crying out loud

2.  Bloody help

3.  Oh bother

Son 2 aged 11m slept for an hour at The Nursery today, his longest yet.  Possibly related to me going to bed at midnight last night, waking him up as I went upstairs, and deciding not to go to him. The Shop is Shut, I thought.  The Man is away.  I have done a 19 hour day.  I am not doing any more.  I know how tired you are.  You will go to sleep soon.   At 0115 he finally passed out.  When I got to The Nursery to pick him up, I could hear him hollering from the road outside.  “He’s only just started,” they said.  I think that one’s in the book, just under “He stopped the minute you left.” 

 Son 1 aged 3 y 11m occasionally says “Bloody help” when things go wrong.  “I can’t get through this bloody gate,” as he tears the stairgate down.  “I don’t want any bloody breakfast” when I’m trying to crowbar him away from the telly to come downstairs.  The Man and I are ignoring it, and have mended our language ways.  Friends cry silently, shoulders shaking, when he does it.  The Man thinks he’s to blame, although I know there were a good few “Oh bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody f**ing hell”s witnessed by Son 1  during Son 2 ’s darkest refluxing days, when gallons upon gallons of  curdled acidic slop was vomited over me, the carpet and the soft furnishings five and six times a day.   My only mitigation is that Son 1 does say “Oh bother” more than anything else.

But, now he’s said to me: “You bloody f***ing girl.”  Ah.  I thought. That’s not charming.  That’s not going to go down very well at the Posh, Inaccessible, Outstanding Nursery when he starts on Thursday.  Casually I said “Those words are a bit angry and rude.  Daddy and Mummy have stopped saying those words.”  “I’m not going to stop saying them,” he said.  The only remaining tactic I have left is to wait a couple of weeks and then  complain to the Posh Nursery teacher.  “I’m not being funny, but he never used language like that before he started with you.”