1.  Gasping

2.  Blowing

3.  Snorting

4.  Bubbles

“Darling,” I said, putting my arms around The Man’s neck before he had his teeth in. “Men are Protectors.  Women are Nurturers.  Your job is to be Be Strong.  Mine is to Cherish.”  “What are you after?” he asked. “There’s a dead rat by the back door and I ain’t touching it,”  I said.  The large, clear-eyed, glossy-coated rat we saw sitting on its haunches in the back yard, gazing straight at us, coincided with the head lice outbreak. http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2009/10/05/the-ugly-bug-ball/ I didn’t put it in The Blog; I forgot.  So often happens with life’s little nasties when you have a Positive Attitude.  And then I looked up rats on Mumsnet. The post that haunted me said that the problem isn’t the one you see, it’s the huge family out of sight. So we called the Rat Man and he came, last Saturday, in an unmarked van.  He put one box down in the yard, behind a paving slab “where the boys can’t get it,” said The Man.  Yes darling I’m really going to let them play in the yard when there’s a rat the size of Son 2 aged 2y 1m living there. Another box went in the alleyway next to the house.  I went downstairs this morning. I put the kettle on. I put the first load of washing on.  I went to take the rubbish out, glanced through the window and there it was.  Smaller than before, the sheen on its fur gone.  Looking like it had died crawling out of the drainpipe across the doorway.   Which of course it probably had.  27 years of being asked why I’m vegetarian. Because I cannot cannot cannot stand critturs dying.

The Man is off on another Business Trip tomorrow, so we took Son 1 aged 5y and Son 2 out for breakfast.  By the time we got to the Cafe, Son 1 was so hungry he couldn’t behave.  The Man thought it was a disaster, but I think they’re improving.  Son 1’s eyes lit up when he saw the straw in his drink. He “always gets the bubbly glass,” and a few splashes of pineapple juice were spattered around. The Man growled.   Son 2 watched intently, took his straw in his little mouth and blew out his entire glassfull. The Man barked.

There’s another Festival in The Town so off we went. We met Friends with a 3 year old, and took the boys into the Marquee to paint shells.  Son 1 was Perfect Child, mixing a base colour, dabbing, adding glitter, doing twiddly bits at the edges. Son 2. It didn’t start well. He dabbed a great blob of red paint on the end of a paintbrush. And then I decided to take his reins off. The paint got on his reins. And on his hair, up his nose, on me and all over the nappy bag. I tried babywiping the paint out of his fringe and it just got rubbed in and looked like I’d dyed it. Then the red paintbrush went in the green paint tub. Then the glitter, which they were supposed to take little pinches of and sprinkle, was upturned onto his shell. Then he globbed blue paint all over Son 1’s shell and the tanks came over. I had to buy £6 worth of raffle tickets to make it up to the woman.

We did ice cream, we did coffee. We bought sausage rolls for lunch and Son 2 fell asleep. The Festival was packed. We bought a bottle of sparking white wine with six plastic glasses - four for us and two for whoever  turns up as soon as you’ve bought a bottle -  and sat down in the sunshine on the pavement by the side of The Museum.   A wedding party trooped past on the way to a boat trip from The Quay.   The boys crayoned, posted gravel in breeze block holes, and played with Go Gos and Son 2’s farm.  A friend walked by with his dog, and helped himself to a glass from the back of the Pram. The local policeman passed. “Vagrants!” he called. “Just drinking outside before it’s banned!” I called back.  The sun and the shadows moved round… the wedding party returned. We pushed the boys back home and gave them ready meals for tea.

1.  Nothing But Blue Skies

2.  Obstacles

3.  Here Is The Rainbow

We are improving.  We can get out of the house a bit earlier, and in to School a bit earlier.  A bright, fresh morning with a blue sky. Son 1 aged 4y 11m is still in shorts; I was in a silk print frock. I have no idea what Son 2 aged 2 wore. He was in his pyjamas when we left, and in his (different) pyjamas when we got back. A completely different set of parents dropping off when we are On Time, as opposed to There By The Skin Of Our Teeth. I’ve never seen any of them before.  Although I do think it’s quite funny that it is, indeed, Always The Same Ones who are late when we are.

At lunchtime I went out to shop for party food.  M and S. No I didn’t remember the bloody vouchers. Or the bloody carrier bags.  I gained three more party guests on the way.  One is a little vegetarian boy who usually comes with his vegetarian parents.   I’ve been vegetarian for 26 years and even I don’t really know what we eat. I bought quiche and  Cheese and onion savoury rolls.  I don’t want little 5 year old X to sit and stare at the table and not have a choice.  “I can’t decide if Son 1 aged 4m is going to be a vegetarian or not,” I said to the Breastfeeding Counsellor, way back in Jan 2005. “Well you don’t need to decide yet do you?  He’s 17 weeks old.”  “Oh it’s not for now, I’m making baby food for the freezer for when i go back to work and I’m just starting 9m in the Annabel Karmel book.”  I was a bit more in control in Those Days.  I went for meat.   I didn’t want him to be the odd one out at parties.

When I picked him up he had made me a bar of soap, and completed his sticker chart for a Certificate Of Achievement. “I’m the first to get it in my class,” he said.  For two weeks he has talked of nothing else. “I am going to smile so I can get a sticker.” “I am going to help so I can get a sticker.” He seems two years older than he was two weeks ago.  I let him talk me into a trip to Tesco, because I needed serving plates for tomorrow. He behaved impeccably.  Threw a few Smoothies squashies and cheese stringie things into the trolley, but I kind of regard those as collateral damage if I’m barmy enough to take him shopping. Back home, The Man had remembered to buy serving plates too. The phone kept ringing, Another three party guests.  We are now up to… er… 25.  I can do 24 Scooby Party bags. 24 Scooby plates and 24 Scooby cups. After that it’s Tesco Value. They won’t all come. Sweepstake anyone?  I think 7 no-shows on the day. Maybe two we’re not expecting to turn up. I am The Woman Who Cooked Her Baby Food Four Months In Advance.  I will take a carrier bag of Spares.

1.  Biting Remarks

2.  An Audience

3.   Value

Forgot to tell you. I solved The Mystery Of The Broken Front Tooth on Saturday.  Vegetarians have great teeth.  Nothing we eat is crunchy or chewy or hard.  And we’re overloaded with calcium.  Yet I lost a fragment of front incisor.  I was more worried than I admitted to myself.  Crumbly teeth = getting old = poor Son 1 aged 4y 11m and Son 2 aged 23 with their toothless crone of a mother. The hygienist on Thursday blamed wine.  But.  On Saturday on The Boat I realised that hooray hooray, I am still young, I am not a drunk…. I just shouldn’t bite Frubes open for the boys.

We had a scrum to get Son 1 and me out of the house on time, and we were doing fine till we we encountered a massive queue of traffic. Broken down double decker. “What have they done with the children?” asked Son 1, craning his neck round. At School, we went in with X from Son 1’s class and his mother. ”X is looking forward to the party,” said Mother.  Yes.  X’s father rang me last night to say he’d be coming. Son 1 answered the phone, and brought it upstairs. He came into the bedroom just as I had my head in the cot singing Son 2’s lullaby.  I ignored him because Son 2 was drowsy and I didn’t want him fired up again.  So Son 1 thrust the phone at my mouth just as I launched into a reedy (but perfectly pitched) Summer-Tiiiimmmmeee.  ”Hello?” said a tinny voice. “This is X’s dad.  He’d love to come to the party.”

I’m still not 100% so I had a Hard Day At The Office.  I took a late lunch and did a Big Shop.  Including a  birthday cake for Friday, lots of little fairy cakes, and Tesco Value Hula Hoops.  You can’t Taste The Difference.  Two Variety Packs for Son 1.  Not 5 years old and I am bribing him with sugary food to get him to have breakfast. The worst sin is not  Son 1.  It’s “And me!” Son 2 who has to have what he’s having. I picked up Son 1 and we headed home. He went in, I unloaded the shopping. Not realising that Son 2 was howling for me upstairs.  We are thinking about toilet training Son 2, so at bathtime we give him a chocolate button every time he pees in the potty.  He has amazing control, and is currently averaging four buttons per bathtime.  I’m not breaking all the Sisterhood of Motherhood rules on sugar. This is science. His brother had nothing sweet till he was two, and is now a sugar junkie. So, in the interests of research, I am plying Son 2 with sweet things to prove that once he is two, he will choose celery sticks and cucumber instead.

1. Before Time

2.  Lunch Time

3.  Home Time

Not yet light. I am awakened by fierce eyebrowing.  Son 1 aged 4y 9m hanging round my neck, compulsively stroking my eyebrow and fingering my closed eyelids and eyelashes. Vaguely conscious, I rolled over to check he wasn’t on the edge of the bed.  I was on the edge of the bed. He couldn’t get in. He was standing ,slumped over me, cuddling, with determined little fingers going for my eyebrows. I heaved him up and over and he was instantly asleep. I’m not even sure he was entirely awake.  Next thing I knew, there was a loud stage whisper in my ear. ”Mummeeee.   Mummmmeee.  It’s five, four, seven.”  Son 1 cannot tell the time, but he can read a digital clock.  “Go back to sleep.  We don’t get up until it’s at least six something.”  And I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him how soon that was going to be.

One of the men at The Office left today.  He’s going to work Far Far Away.  He’s very young and very special, and we are incredibly sorry to see him go.  There was a pub visit at lunchtime, which is sadly surprising for  us. ”Are we going to a proper pub?” said a male colleague. “We always end up at girl pubs.”  Indeed we were.  Seven men, two women.  Many pints of bitter.  They were all fast, funny and weirdly disparate.  Vegetarianism: “I will eat fish but I have to know it’s sustainable and caught using cruelty free methods which don’t wreck the marine environment,” said a Dark Green Colleague. “I’m vegetarian so I can have a tumble drier,” I said, using one of my latest (not necessarily true) lines. “You’ve got children so you’ve already wrecked your carbon footprint,” said the Dark Green Colleague.  “I’ve recycled someone else’s, so I win,” said The Colleague Who Adopted.

Back home, Granny and Grandad - who arrived yesterday - were in the lounge with Wonder Nanny, Son 1 and Son 2 aged 22m.  Granny and Granddad are staying at The Hotel With THe River View.  They’d been down to The Museum, where the boys coloured copiously.  They had apparently been perfectly behaved all day. Granny and Granddad cannot believe how well they’ve come on. I started putting them to bed, and The Man arrived back from his Business Trip.  Son 1 shrieked at the sound of his key in the door.  Son 2 stood on the landing and jumped up and down for joy.

1.  Darling Buds

2.  Primroses

3.  Hazelnuts

And Good Thing No 1 is that for the first time in ages (since they had their colds?) Son 1 aged 4y 4m, and Son 2 aged 17 went to sleep and woke up in their own bed/cot.  Not without trauma or incident, but it’s a start.  Son 2 cried so much yesterday evening that we simply had to leave him.  We were both working and in the end, after each of us had spent a couple of 20 min+s with him, we had to give up and let him cry.  Which I’m not doing again as I can’t stand it.  But… he did stay asleep in the cot till morning.  A Gold Star to the little boy with the Very Loud Voice.  Son 1 came floating up to the Big Bed at 4am, and I led him back down to his own bed.  I got in with him, and then when he’d gone back to sleep I went in the bed in Son 2’s room.  After so many nights of me in one bed with one child, and The Man in the other bed with the other, I am pleased. 

We got to Nursery in plenty of time.  Son 1’s last day before his half term.  There are some daffodils in bloom on the other side of the road to the Muddy Path.  And primroses.  “I won a prize when I was a little girl for drawing a primrose.” “What did you win?”  “I can’t remember.  I got a certificate.”  “Can i see the picture?”  “I haven’t got it anymore.”  “Can I see the certificate?”  “I haven’t got that any more either.  I know I was very proud.”  In the Nursery, Son 1 showed me his snowmen pictures, up on the wall.  Son 1 with his Snowman.  The Snowman, without Son 1.   Nursery wrote us a note in Son 1’s book thanking us for the photos.  “Son 1 is very proud of them.”   

Son 1 and I went shopping.  He struggled to get past the Power Ranger toys, Ben 10 jumpers/socks, and power ranger/Ben 10 outfits.  I let him choose a cake to eat at the till.  He chose a doughnut with chocolate icing and chopped hazelnuts.  Up and down the aisles.  He sat in the trolley.  He did pretty well, although it really isn’t a good idea to take him.  At the till I gave him his doughnut.  As I packed the shopping: “Mummy can you take these bits off, I don’t like them.”  I packed up, I paid.  I pushed Son 1 to the side.  And then stood there picking off scores and scores of hazelnut pieces.  I got most of them off, and gave the doughnut back to Son 1 with just a few dotted about on it.  He spent the time from the shop to the car meticulously picking every piece off.  In the car on the way home he ate the chocolate icing and then passed me the ring with it’s top chewed off.