1.  Starting Gate

2.  School Gates 

3.  Stair Gates

Every bloody morning for the last eight weeks Son 1 aged 4y 11m has been bouncing out of bed.  Today he couldn’t get up. “I’m tired. Who says we have to get up?” We tried to get him to eat a croissant but it was yesterday’s. Wouldn’t eat it. Ate only about 15 dry Cheerios and a few grapes for breakfast.  Into his school uniform, cuteness on legs. “Tell Daddy to buy you a Variety Pack for breakfast tomorrow.”  “And me!” chorused Son 2 aged 23m.  Son 1 trailed downstairs, and I heard him saying: “Mummy says I can have Coco Pops for breakfast.” 

We had a late start because we were seeing the dentist.  I stopped off to get Son 1 a comic. “Mummy why have I got this comic?”  “To keep you occupied while I see the hygienist.”  “But why does it include me?” “Because your dentist’s appointment is after mine.”  A couple of weeks ago a fragment broke off my front incisor leaving a sharp corner.  I asked the hygienist why it had happened. “Acidic drinks?” she said. “Fruit juice?  Wine?”  Ah. The dentist said both Son 1 and I are doing great.   i dropped him off at his school. The children were on break.  His form teacher met us and showed us around. I showed her Son 1’s chest, covered in molluscum contagiosum.  I’ve been worried they won’t let him go swimming. “Oh we had loads of that last year, I think it’s all right as long as it’s not weeping.” The school’s had building work done over the holidays and it’s fantastic. Two new teaching assistants know us from Son 1’s Old Nursery. He scampered off to play with friends from Nursery last year.  And That Was That.

After The Office, I walked in to find The Man was unpacking the fish tank he’s bought for Son 1 and Son 2’s joint birthday present. They were in raptures. “Fish Tank! Fish Tank!” chortled Son 2.  Yes we know it’s ahead of the Big Days… but we have cleaning to do and gravel to wash and plants to settle in before we can even think about fish.  I wanted to know all about Son 1’s First Day At School.  He wanted to wash gravel. He was exhausted and uncontrollable and adorable.  i scooped them upstairs for their baths. Son 2 shut the stair gate behind us.  He is the only one who closes them, and then I can’t get through when my hands are full of cups/washing/etc. The Man took both stair gates out while I read to Son 2.  The house looks very different without them.

1.  Darkest Hour 

2.  A Kind Of Blue

3.  White Teeth

Son 2 aged 17m started crying. I looked at the clock. Just before 6am.  It wasn’t really crying.  It was shouting.  Loud, intermittent pre-vocal blasts.  Getting louder and louder. Standing up in his cot, hands hooked over the rail.  I got him up, changed his nappy and gave him a drink of water.  We got past Son 1 aged 4y 5m’s bedroom without waking him and went downstairs to get the drinks and snacks.  It was 5am.  On the positive side, we didn’t have a rush to get to Nursery.  

Nursery.  All the Nursery and Reception children were in their own clothes, in their favourite colours.  All except one.  How do the other Mothers know this?  Every other little child except Son 1, decked out in civvies.  “Oh Navy’s a lovely colour, it’s a kind of blue,” sang out the class teacher as we arrived.  I simply do not know where the communication loop is.  There is a tiny book of dates they hand out at the start of each term.  But that just gets sucked into our Paperwork Vortex where it is probably still spinning, weightless.  They send letters about Parents’ Evenings, and class photos.  Nope. Genuinely baffled.  I picked Son 1 up early for a dentist’s appointment.  The children were clustering for photos in their various colour groups.  The reds were being taken as I arrived.  The blues were rounded up.  1 sent Son 1 over, and he sat cross-legged in the middle of the front row. As the lady said.  Navy’s a kind of blue.

The Dentist was a Good Thing.  I’d pictured the Dentist staring into Son 1’s gaping mouth and spotting craters bombed out by raisins, chocolate, fruit juice and bedtime milk.  Ting ting ting with his little metal proddy thing.  “They’re fine Son 1, what a good boy, would you like a sticker?”  He did me, I was also fine.  The hygienist had a space, did I want go down now?  Yes I did.  Unfortunately poor Son1, who’d already waited for the Dentist for 25 toyless minutes, had reached his limits. Prone in the Big Chair, goggles on, bib on, mouth full of cutlery and teeth getting sandblasted, dug out and polished, I had Son 1 crawling on top of me and lying with his head on my tummy.  “Does it hurt?” he asked. No, said the hygienist, as I couldn’t speak.  At bedtime I said “Were you frightened Mummy was getting hurt?” He nodded sadly.  So I gave him a flash of my sparkling new smile.

1.  Sounds like…

2.  Dropped It

3.  Sleeping over 

Son 2 aged 11m is a delight with his speech.  Son 1 aged 3 y 10m has a little blue ELC keyboard.  Son 2 knows how the microphone works.  I hold him up, he bangs on the keyboards, tries to push drum buttons, gets the microphone, puts his lips round it and goes Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.  Son 2 loves anything with buttons, lights and noise.   He loves remote controls.  Age appropriate toys is for babies. He can say na-na… but we think he might be using it for “food.”   He can say “yeah” and “nah.”  He can say his own version of ”dropped it.”  I swear he came out with a pretty good try at Son 1’s name.  And when I was reading him “Mr Brown Can Moo,” I said “He can sound like a bee, Mr Brown can buzz.  How about you? Can you go buzzzzz?” He blew a raspberry.  Which I think is pretty neat.   

Son 1 played with Wonder Nanny, while I Got On.  I think all I really want is someone to Get On while I play with the children.  Both he and Son 2 were wiped out with tiredness today, but I couldn’t get them to sleep.  Son 1 has a friend round for his very first sleep over. We went to M and S to get stuff for tea.  I loaded the buggy so heavily with shopping that when we got back to the house it tipped backwards and bashed Son 1’s head on the path.  Oops.    I am such a cartoon The Crap Mother Who… didn’t strap her baby in the pram and dropped him on his head (pre-blog incident.) … didn’t watch her crawling baby on the bed so he fell off on his head… overloaded the buggy so her pre-schooler fell on his head…

Son 1’s friend arrived.  Dressed as a pirate.  I think I’m in the acceptance stage  now, after 17 months of the pirate craze.  So what if 3 year olds know what to expect when they come to stay at our house?  I don’t even need to plot to make sure Son 2 likes pirates too.  He can already do a passable “Ha-harrr.”   Anyway.  The boys ran off to the garden, where The Man, clock-watching till he could go out for a drink, supervised.  They came back for tea.  Which was a little pig-heavy: sausages, sausage rolls and ham sandwiches, but I did let Son 1 choose the menu.  I bathed and fed Son 2 and put him to sleep.  The boys played in the garden, and then came in for a story. Bath time was fine, they were reasonably quiet.  Cleaning The Friend’s teeth was  a joy.  A child who bares his teeth and keeps his head still.  Cleaning Son 1’s teeth was wretched.  Mouth open a paper width.  Head helter-skeltering.  Stories, boys in bed - we made The Friend’s from our winter quilt - and they are now both soundo. 

1.  Breakfast

2. Pat pat pat

3. Forgiveness

Had a veggie sausage sandwich for breakfast while I looked at the paper.  Son 2 aged 10m was asleep - he is crashing out again soon after his milk feed at the moment.  Might be related to the hours he spends awake at night.  Son 1 aged 3 y 10m was upstairs on the big bed, wrapped up in the quilt, watching telly.  The Man was heading out on a Business Trip that was going to be one night, but may now be more.  I told Son 1 we’d aim at walking into The Town, but it never stopped raining.

I played pirates with Son 1 for a bit while Son 2 was asleep. Not for long enough, and I did more mending and sorting than playing.  When I was on maternity leave we had long and involved stories and battles, which Son 1 just wants to return to.  But we can’t because now Son 2 crawls (pat pat pat pat) and eats everything it’s just too dangerous.  I think it’s very hard for Son 1 when The Man is away.  Son 2 takes such a lot of effort… and Son 1 longs to play with me.  We did ok because Son 2 had three short naps today, but Son 1 needed longer.   

I still don’t know how stay-at-home mums do it.  All I seemed to do today was laundry, cooking, cleaning and tidying up toys.  Why is it supposedly better for small boys to watch women do that all day than to go nursery?  How do people get time to glue pasta into collages and make muffins? Bathtime, I played peepabo with Son 2.  When I put Son in the bath, he wanted to play too.  So, me lying on the bathroom floor, peering up at the top of the bath.  First one little fist, then another appears at the top.  Son 2 with his three teeth up, two teeth down smile, looking down at me with the light behind his head.  Next to him, Son 1’s head, laughing and laughing, “Let’s do it again!” This is seconds after I’d told him off for screeching and hurting my ear.  “Let me off like Wendy and Tinkerbell,” he said.

1. Playgroup

2. Costa

3. Superdrug

We met up with our friends at the Church Playgroup.   Son 1 aged three and a half loved it, ran around with his friends, played toys with his friends, and then, cutely, kept bringing toys for Son 2 aged 7m over to the baby area.  Son 2 - who’s a toy addict -  chortled, grabbed, bit and chewed.  There were well over 20 children there… but only 3 or 4 girls.   I said: ”You know, if none of us moves, there are going to be real problems in 15 years’ time when they’re all after the same girls.” Our friend said: “It’ll be fine.  All this shows is that women who have boys have to get out of the house.”

Work still going on in the house at 12 when we got back, so I packed up some lunch for Son 2 and dragged Son 1 out again.   A cappacino and a sandwich for me, a little tray of biscuits and a babycino for Son 1, and Annabel Karmel and breast milk for Son 2.  Son 1 didn’t like the tray of biscuits so we took them home for The Man.  Son 2 was so tired he just lay back in his pushchair, eyes half closed, barely bothering to open his mouth when I put the spoon up.  And he didn’t want his breast milk.  But it was great.   I spooned healthy, organic, home-made sugar and salt-free puree into Son 2’s mouth… and the chocolate from the top of my coffee into Son 1’s.  Very expensive.  I remember one of the other mums on one of the other blogs was worried about her coffee bar habit, but I think Parents Of Children Under Five deserve creamy frothy coffee whenever we like.  Because everybody else is binge-drinking apart from us.

April showers on the way back.  We went into Superdrug to escape one.  While I was trying,  bewildered, to choose between anti-bacterial  tartar control mouthwash and anti-tartar bacterial control, fresh-mint or mint-fresh, and green, purple, blue or orange, Son 1 was trashing the toddler-level children’s dental care display.  He chose a little blue toothbrush and new toothpaste for Son 2’s two little teeth, and for himself, a new toothbrush with a dog cover on it.  As I dithered over my mouthwash, I did enjoy the sight of him studying (= handling) every kind of brush and toothpaste with his face covered in smeary chocolate bits from my coffee.  And I do not beat myself up, for I am a Positive Parent.