1.  Saying Goodbye

2.  Introductions

3.  Substitutions

I dropped my contact lens when I was getting up. “I’ll find it,” called Son 1 aged 4y 11m from bed, remembering how last time he got himself a Scooby Doo DVD for finding it. The Man found it, but didn’t admit it, giving Son 1 a clue instead. He came down the stairs, triumphant. ”I want a present now. From your secret present pile.” I gave him a Ben 10 pencil set I’d bought for his birthday.  The Man took him away to school and Son 2 aged 23m and I were left alone in the house.  Bereft.  For four and a half years I’ve worked flat out so they’re never apart from me for longer than two days. And now Son 1 will be gone five days at a time. Pang pang pang.  Son 2 didn’t care, he discarded the Tarzan DVD and put The Wiggles on.  And complained when I stopped it on the second time through so that we could go out.  

We went to the Beach By The Garden.  I took the Big Pram.  Before Son 2, I used to push the Big Pram everywhere. I covered miles and miles.  Son 2 fell asleep.  As I strode through coastal avenues I wondered whether I now had the chance to go for long walks on sunny Wednesdays for the next three years.  At the beach, each Wednesday Mum had only one boy. We last each had only one boy in December 2005.    It was very different.  Son 2 instantly expanded to fit the space alloted him: to the sea for water, climbing up me to balance on my shoulders, sitting with me, digging with me. At one point, as I tried again to loll back on the beach mat, drink black coffee from my flask and chat to the other mums, I considered saying: “Play by yourself, what do you think I am, your Nanny?”  He is of course designed to be irresistable.  I changed into my costume and swam in the sea. I turned round to look back and he had followed me down the sand, towing the beach mat, a Wednesday Mum completing the parade.  He had no intention of letting me go out swimming again, so we sat in the sea together, being slapped out by every seventh wave. “Again, again,” he chortled. 

We picked up Son 1, came back, they watched a bit of telly and I gave them an M and S ready meal spag bol for tea. Son 2 was weeping with misery over Son 1’s Ben 10 stationery kit. Son 1 loves it so much he won’t take anything  out of the box; Son 2 just wants to finger everything. Genuine, deep misery.  “Would you like one for your birthday?” “Yes peez.”  Good job I have the £3 Wall-E from TK MAxx, ready and raring to go.  I put Son 2 to bed. The Man and Son 1 wrapped his presents. Including Wall E.  The Man went out drinking. I came downstairs. On the phone was a message from the entertainer booked for the joint party a week on Saturday. ”Human Error. Mix Up.  Two shows booked for Saturday afternoon. Ours will have to change times. Sorry about short notice, he’s been leaving messaged on the wrong number. He’ll ring everyone. Not to worry.”  i left a message on his answerphone which said: “Sling Yer Hook, we’ll get someone else.”  Then I rang Wonder Nanny Crisis Management Services.  She suggested a person, and gave me a number. The Person can do the party. Hooray.

1.  Like A Jungle, Sometimes

2.  Smash And Grab

3.  Collateral Damage

Today was just a bonus.  I thought I’d be on Jury Service, miserably ordered out of my children’s lives by the Iron Heel of David Blunkett’s determination that Middle Class People Must Stop Dodging It.  But with one wave of a magic wand (yes oh yes I believe in fairies) I was on the beach, taking pictures of the boys, swigging from my credit-crunch coffee flask and awaiting the Wednesday Friends.  The Sister-In-Law has lived to fight another day.  Son 1 aged 4y 7m ran off with Best Friend (aged 4y 6m,) Second Child aged 3 and half and Best Friend’s little brother, aged nearly 3. Son 2 aged 20m dug sand, watched a playgroup, besotted,  and tried to wander off On The Road, again and again.   After lunch they moved into the Garden By The Beach. We discussed the ethics of letting four small boys dive in and out of infant ornamental grass in the presence of 20 council gardeners putting out the bedding. And decided it served the council right for laying out a formal garden for the over-60s in land that could have been a perfectly lovely playground.  We pretended we didn’t know that three of them had escaped into a vast thicket of 7ft gunnera.  We couldn’t see them, or the gardener who said sternly: “Lads, I don’t mind you being in there, but don’t pull that up, it’s there for a reason.”  They’re allowed in the gunnera, we thought.  

At 2pm we headed home.  The parking fairy put us close to the house.  Son 2 fell asleep in the car of about 5 minutes and refused to go back to sleep. I put A Shark’s Tale on for an exhausted Son 1, and fish-mad Son 2 decided to he’d rather watch that than cling to me.  Son 2’s Godmother called round, and we drank tea as she test-drove her new presentation.  Son 2 appeared, and coyly flirted and giggled, and “hallo”-d her from the Dishwasher Box House. He then tantrummed when she left. I put him on a chair at a sink full of warm water and bubbles while I made Eggy Pie - tortilla - for tea.  I called Son 1 down to break the eggs. As soon as he saw Son 1 smash and plop the first one, Son 2 slid down from his chair and up on Son 1’s.  Gimme Gimme Gimme.  I patiently said no, blocked off his access to the egg box and let Son 1 get on with the job of breaking another four eggs into the jug.  Son 2 got down from the chair and played on the floor.  Five minutes later I looked down.  The little b**£$%^!# was patting and paddling in a broken egg on the floor, egg shell everywhere.   In the four seconds he’d had available, he’d whipped an egg out of the box and either dropped it or taken it down to the floor with him. Neither Son 1 nor I saw a thing. 

I cleared up the egg, and let Son 2 up on the chair again. The recipe includes two tablespoons of parmesan in the egg mix.  I put a spoonful in  a tub and let him pour it into Son 1’s jug.  “More,” he demanded. I obliged. “More.” I put some more in his tub. He poured it in. “More.” And cried when I wouldn’t give him any.  “You’ve put courgette in this,” said Son 1, peering in the frying pan. “Only a bit,”  I said. “Because I like courgette, but I know you don’t like it.”  Subtext. Because courgette was in the veg box and you won’t notice it when it’s all mixed up with the peas and potato. Between us all, we made a Damn Fine Eggy Pie. Son 1 cut and served it. “I think from now on we should always help you make tea,” he said.  I agreed it had been fun.  He helped himself to a vast portion, and then, very slowly,  dissected it to remove every molecule of courgette.

1.  Wake Me Up

2.  Bad Boys

3.  Freedom

Son 2 aged 18m had an awful night.  I got back late from the Big City, he cried, I went in and he was burning up.  So, worried he had my cold, and worried he needed Mummy Serotonin, I slept with him. And was instantly reminded why I don’t do it.  He just doesn’t sleep if I’m with him.  At one point he had me pressed against the foot of the cot, the bars in the side of my head, as he lay T-boned alongside the pillows, his hard little head shoved into me.  In the morning he cried to get up, his sleeping bag twisted round and round him so he could no longer move.  My head stayed on the pillow.   Son 1 aged 4y 6m came in, chattering.  Son 2 pushed himself up on his arms and smiled.

The Beach By The Garden was the Wednesday trip.  The other two mums were already there.  Son 1 played with Best Friend, Best Friend’s little brother, and 3 year old.  Son 2, flashing through the Seven Dwarfs of Over-Tiredness.  Crabby, Floppy, Clingy, Tetchy, Dozy, Clumsy and Loud.   The four big boys scattered like marbles.  I put the beach tent up, hoping it would keep them all in one place.  They tried to tow it away by the guy ropes.   One Mum went, Son 2 fell asleep At Long Last, and we de-camped to the Garden.   The three big boys played among the young Gunnera on Snake Island, lying on their tummies, watching the fish flicker back and forth in the streams. I bought them ice cream.  They stripped off and played monkeys, eating chocolate ice creams and climbing on railings.

In the evening I picked up one Wednesday Mother and drove over to the other’s.  We drank Cava and sauvignon blanc, and planned virtual dinner parties to stop us talking about children.   We got as far as Jo Brand, Michelle Shocked, Sawyer from Lost, Jane Austen, Jesus and Shakespeare.  We had problems coming up with enough women, and decided Society Was To Blame.  Then we did Which Chef?  And we got back late.