1.  Rhythm

2.  Blues

3.  Jeopardy

Wednesday is Friends’ Day.  So why oh why did I have to do painting, colouring and a long, loud session on the drum kit and ELC keyboard before anyone came round?  She is saintly, and will not  mind me crying Foul! Is That Not Why I Have Wonder Nanny?  Ahem. Excuse me.  One Wednesday  Mother had a hospital appointment for 3 year old’s adenoids and was Too Stressed To Come Out.  The other Wednesday Mother wanted to come here, which was fine. I am being unfair on Son 1 aged 4y 10m and Son 2 aged 23m.  Son 1 was up for painting. Son 2 really just likes stirring the dirty water from an upturned ramekin and splatting it on the walls with a paintbrush.  And the jamming session was great. Son 1 on keyboards “You’re too noisy! I can’t hear when I sing!” and Son 2, “Bang-It-Hard-Enough-And-The-Crayons-I’ve-Posted-In-All-The-Drums-Will-Rattle.”  Mrs Gallagher would have had this.

Best Friend and Little Brother at last came round.   Best Friend and Son 1 locked into a horrible axis and wouldn’t play with Little Brother. Little Brother, tired, rejected/dejected, was uninterested in Son 2, no matter how we tried.   Son 2 trailed after all three: “I’m 4! I’m 4! Honest!”  Son 1 and BF were in an elaborate game of pirates which involved caves, maps and treasure. LB, who must never be under-rated, was very often in possession of the treasure chest. And I was on his side.  Son 2 wore Son 1’s Captain Hook outfit, and was incredibly pleased with himself. Pa-ang.   Son 1 hasn’t worn his Captain Hook outfit since BF’s mother found him one at a car boot sale.        

The MAn came home with a Business Colleague and we all went crabbing. The tide was coming in, there was seaweed everywhere so we couldn’t see anything, all four boys stripped off.  I made Son 2 put his reins back on. “In years to come, it will cost him a great deal to walk around naked with a beautiful  blonde on the end of his reins,” I told Wednesday Mum.   Son 1 found something which i thought was a weathered old battery case with stuff growing round it. ”It’s a sea urchin,” said Wednesday Mum. “That’s its mouth.”  She did a degree in Marine Biology ahead of the PhD in Chemical  Engineering so I kinda believe her.  We still caught crabs. Big ‘Uns and Littl’Uns. Son 1 caught a whopper. Son 1 caught a titch - just by trawling his shrimp net he found the teeniest sideways-mover. We put them all in the same big bucket, worried they’d eat each other. But they all huddled under the Whopper. ”We’re running out of concrete,” observed BF.  Four-year-old speak for The Tide Is Racing In. We were also running out of bacon.  But we defeated our own record.  Twelve crabs and a sea urchin. We tipped the bucket out on the river wall so we could watch the crabs scuttle back to the water. Three huge seagulls appeared instantly.  We then had to prise the bloody crabs out of the gaps in the steps to get them safely back in the river.    It was supposed to be a race, but it turned into an airlift.

1. Lazybones

2.  Young Bones

3.  Old Bones

A lie in till 8am… mainly because I worked so late last night I couldn’t get up. Not even for Son 2 aged 21m’s “Mummeeee!”  “Mummmeee!”s.  A Day Off.  The Man vanished off to Work. Son 2 posted blueberries in the funnel of his Postman Pat steam train.  We plodded around.  Son 1 aged 4y 9m had the Moon Sand out before Wonder Nanny arrived.  Son 2 wanted to play with the Moon Sand (banished, for throwing it,) write with a pen (mainly left handed but still swapping to the right to keep us guessing) watch the Bin Men (”Up me! Up me!”) and play outside.  Son 1 watched Cars.

We took The Boat out. As soon as we got aboard, Son 1 scoffed all his cheese and marmite sandwiches while Son 2 ate hummous and pepper.  Wonder Nanny and I hovered around him all the way so he didn’t hurt himself. We had our first chat and took our eyes off him. He went running to find Son 1, fell over and cut his chin.  We anchored at Two Pirate Cave Bay. The tide was so high the caves were full.  I got in the dinghy with the boys.  Wonder Nanny, in her bikini and belly button stud, dived off The Boat and swam to the shore. The beach was shingle, with sheer cliffs heading 200 yards up, covered in greens and white flowers.  There was boat debris on the highest water marks.   We coaxed Son 1 and Son 2 down from the rocks. “Cave!” said Son 2.  

I swam in the sea, taking forever to get in, but invigorated once I was in and moving. The water was dark green today, with patches of turquoise near the shore.  I swam to The Boat just to prove I could, and then across to a big rock near the entrance to the Two Caves.  I went in one, and then went back for Son 1 and carried him round. He was in Pirate Captain heaven. “Dig for treasure, me hearties!” “Dig till you find it!”  Son 2 cried “Cold! Cold” and we put the tent up to give him a bit of warmth. He ate more.  Wonder Nanny had us all looking for Sea Glass - bits of broken glass polished round and smooth. We found greens and browns and blues.  Son 1 wasn’t that interested, but I could see PIrate Treasure potential in a good collection.    Son 1 found a twisted, dessicated tree root. “A dinosaur bone!” “Yes, it’s just like a dinosaur bone, like a foot, but it’s a tree branch that looks like  a dinosaur bone.” “No, it’s a dinosaur bone, look, it doesn’t break when I smash it.”  A great shoal of shrimp was feeding near the rocks at the water’s edge. I netted 12, and Son 2 sat, fascinated, staring at them in our yellow plastic bucket.  BAck on the boat, we had everything. “Where’s my dinosaur bone?”  The dinghy went back to get it.

1.  Treasure

2.  Biff and Beaujangles

3.  Countdown

A friend came with her son, aged 2.75.  She’d made Son 1 aged 4 a treasure chest for his birthday, and was setting up a treasure hunt in the back garden so he could find it.  She came round as I was putting Son 2 aged 13m down for his sleep… and while Son 1 had fallen asleep while watching telly upstairs.  He was hot and bothered when he woke, but recovered after Calpol and a drink.  Son 2 woke, and all three boys went outside. Son 1 found the clues, found the treasure chest and has gone to sleep with it under his bed.

The elder two boys started ricocheting off the walls after too much treasure chest chocolate and marshmallows.  We all walked into The Town, said our goodbyes to our friends and went to the dinghy park to watch the crane lifting boats out of the water.  The Man knows how to show a girl a good time.  We had coffee looking over the marina - hence Biff and Beaujangles.  Back home I played peekaboo with Son 2 round the high chair while Son 1 - who really isn’t feeling well- laid on the floor upstairs and watched telly.  Son 2 clearly asked for “na na” when he saw one.  He stuffed his face at teatime; Son 1 ate almost nothing.

We put the boys to bed.  In a manner of speaking, Son 2 is still going down on the double bed and crying every time he wakes up without a grown up beside him.  I am cutting back on the bedtime feed, with a view to stopping entirely in a week or so’s time.  I feel very strange about it.  Pleased I’ve managed to feed him this long.  Sad that we’re leaving that special him-and-me thing behind.  Proud I did it - it’s been crap.  But the fact is I won’t feed another child.  And I would of course love to.  Anyway.  We are indulging Son 2’s need for an adult while I move him off the breast.  Then we’ll leave it a week or so and get him back in his cot.  Somehow.  And of course that will be as easy as it sounds.  

I got out for a run tonight, and it made me feel much better.  The moon was nearly full, so I ran up to the top of The Headland. Not all the way round, in recognition of the fact I haven’t been out for more than a week.  But it was a lovely evening, crisp and cold, with The Town full of life as I ran through.  There are street lights only half way up the Headland, so about 400 yards was in pitch black.  It was harder running in the darkness - even with moonlight - than it used to be because there are some very bright lights from the docks which are too far away to light the path, but so bright they stop your eyes adjusting.  I really must defeat my Inner Robbie and Just Go, four times a week.  I have such a good time when I’m running, I sort out all kinds of stuff in my head and, in principle, it will get the weight off too.  Although on the way back I called in to The Spar and bought chocolate and crips.