1.  Dough

2.  Bread

3.  Darkness and Hail

They wanted to play with the Playdoh, and like a fool I let them.  Son 2 aged 2y 1m plays with it during the week, under Wonder Nanny’s gentle supervision.  Son 1 aged 5y 1m plays with it at school, charming teachers and Tea Club Helpers with the delight he takes in it.  Together, on the little yellow table, they were murderous.  If Son 1 rolled, Son 2 wanted the roller.  If Son 2 squodged, it was the blob Son 1 was going to use. There was snatching and scrapping and shrieking.  And finally there was a lump of blue, trod into the bottom of Son 2’s shoes… and then into the stairs, and the hall carpet, and the lino.  While we were away, the carpet cleaner came and did the lounge, which was looking a bit Jackson Pollock.  ”If one bit of Playdoh gets on the carpet upstairs, I’m throwing it all out,” I said.  We went shopping. “Is it pocket money day?” said Son 1, as I counted out coins in the fishmonger’s. I gave him a £2 coin. We had to go to the toyshop. The only thing he wanted for £2 was a Playdoh toy.  And like a fool, I let him.

We met the Vicar in M and S.  We were trying to control a tantrumming Son 2… he was wandering round with a basket, peering at the ready meals. “Is it your turn to cook?” I asked.   No. The Vicar’s Wife is going on a trip, helping one of their sons move to a town many hundreds of miles away.  “But The Church is full of great cooks,” I said. “Can’t you just work it into a conversation so that someone will arrive carrying a casserole?” “I haven’t told anyone she’s going,” he said. “I don’t like to impose.”  That’s why I like the Vicar.  One of the most imposed-upon people I have ever met… whose flock includes scores of ladies of a certain generation who would rain pies upon him if he asked… but he doesn’t like to impose. He headed off to the check out with a bottle of wine on top of his shopping, so I liked him even more.   I simply don’t have enough life to cook for The Vicar.  But I know someone who might.   I think I’ll mention it…

Son 2 finally fell asleep in The Big Pram; Son 1 and I went to change the library books; The Man strode off home with the shopping.  Son 2 woke up just as we were leaving the library, and picked up his tantrum where he left off. ”I wan’  ge’ ou’!”  “No. It takes too long to get you back in.”  I pushed him up the hill, Son 1 trailing behind us looking at his Playdoh toy.  I suddenly noticed the sky, very, very low, and very, very dark. “Son 1! Will you please hurry! There’s an enormous black cloud up there and I want to get us home now!”  He walked slowly on.  “Son 1, MOVE! That big black cloud is just about to dump everything it has on our heads.” He got the message, but he couldn’t move fast enough.  It started to rain, so I swept him under the handle of the Big Pram onto his nappy bag seat, and pushed them both up the hill so fast my heartbeat pounded in my ears.  We were 300 yards from home when the hail started machine-gunning down on us, hammering onto the road so hard it bounced back hip high.  Son 1 and Son 2 screamed.  The Big Pram is a Big Pram because it’s a three-wheeled, heavy-axled, jogging buggy, bought in the days when I thought I would still run 30 miles a week. Son 1 and I went running with it seven whole times, but Son 2’s reflux meant we never tried.  Until today.  I RAN.  It still does its stuff. We crammed ourselves into the porch, soaking.  “I wet,” said Son 2. “Big back cowd.”  It stopped his tantrum.  But I can’t quite work out if it means I’m supposed to cook something for The Vicar.

1.  Rendering Unto Caesar

2.  Why Take Ye Thought For Raiment

3.  Suffer The Little Children

How To Halve Your Shopping Bill.  Walk to Tesco Express, instead of driving to the Superstore. Take a Big Pram, a large partner and two small children.  The grown ups are allowed one basket each. You are limited to what you can put under The Pram or carry home. And you have to race round like it’s a trolley dash because of bored, misbehaving children trying to sneak Halloween sweets into your shopping.    The Man took Son 1 aged 5 to choose a breakfast cereal. They came back with Chocolate Cheerios. “If we get those then we will never get them back on normal Cheerios and that will kill our main snack/emergency meal/blood sugar lift option,” I said, barely looking up from the Mild Chedddar.  Son 1’s face crumpled. “But I said he could choose what we wanted,” said The Man. ”Fine. Get them.  See what happens.” “They’re not Cheerios,” The Man tried. “Look, they’re Wheetabix.”  “Fine. Get them.”  “Well how am I supposed to know? This is the first I know about your new rule.  You should have said something.” “I did. Yesterday. When we were discussing how to get Son 1 to eat breakfast before school, and you said you’d seen Chocolate Cheerios. I said they’ll never eat normal Cheerios again if we get them.” “Oh yeah,” he said.  They trailed off together and came back with a Variety Pack.  So. Half price shopping.  The baguette broke on the way back, and so did the handle of the big box of (special offer) Fairy… but otherwise I feel we saved money, burned calories and even gave up drinking because we couldn’t carry any wine home. Value Was Had.

Granny and Granddad are visiting this week. They turned up with fairy cakes and flapjacks for Son 1 and Son 2 aged 2y 1m.  The boys couldn’t be bothered to leave the toys and telly long enough to go and let them in… but when I said There Is Cake they charged downstairs.  The Man went off on his Business Trip. G and G went off to check in to the Hotel With The River View.  We went upstairs into the Big Bedroom, because I want to move Son 2 out of 9m to 12 m clothes. I want him in 18m to 24m, but I have a nasty feeling that because Son 1 was bigger, he was in spring/summer stuff at that age.    I am The Mother So Efficient She Had Two Same Sex Children At The Same Time Of Year. And they’re different bloody sizes. Have some more cake, Son 2.

The Vicar rang on Friday to ask if we were going to Tea Service this afternoon, so we thought we better had. Granny came too. We did David And Goliath.  The boys made cardboard and silver foil shields. They did ok in the service - legged it during the Lord’s Prayer, but at least they started off still sitting in the pew, and then scoffed their dinosaur shapes, cheesy mash and veg tea. In the bath, Son 1 Sang Hosanna.  I tried to explain the words to him, without committing myself. “You can’t say you don’t believe in God, Mummy, or He’ll die,” Son 1 told me.  Eat your heart out Richard Dawkins, all you need is Peter Pan.   At his christening, well over three years ago, he was given a My First Bible, with child-friendly language and child-friendly illustrations .  Time to break it out, I thought. We did David And Goliath. We did Noah. I left Son 1 looking at it while I put Son 2 to bed. When I came back he’d found pictures of the crucifixion. “What are they doing?” “Seeing how long they can stay up there,” I said, quickly closing it and flicking backwards. Jesus in Gethsemane, being kissed by Judas while Romans stood about with spears and torches. “And what are they doing?” “Going On A Bear Hunt,” I said, putting it away and getting out You Choose. ”Did they catch one?” “I think so.”  Wrong on many levels, I know, but he’s five, it was late, and I am a moral coward.

1.  A Happy Child

2.  A Blushing Bride

3.  A Respectable Mother

So. A while back, I told Son 1 aged 5 that going to school on your birthday means a party before, a birthday tea on the day, and a Treat the weekend after. He wanted to know what the Treat would be.  Going to the Willy Wonka Sweet Shop and choosing whatever you like. So after breakfast we stepped out, Son 2 aged 2 in the Big Pram, and Son 1 walking.  Son 1 didn’t want to walk.  He wanted Son 2 out of the Big Pram.  I have lurked long and shamefacedly on the parenting threads and established that no-one else is still pushing their schoolage child around in a Pram he outgrew two years ago. When He Is Five, I told myself, we will stop. So. Son 2 stayed in the pram. And Son 1 rode all the way through The Town on the axle of the Pram, holding on to the handles like crutches.  The Sweet Shop was brilliant. Chocolates and lollies and chews and fudges and jelly beans and picknmix and toffee and Everything.  I bought them both a 10p lolly to suck while they peered, pop-eyed, at it all.  Son 1 chose a big colourful Childcatcher lolly, so Son 2 had to have the same. And they chose a walking stick full of jelly beans for later. 

We were going to a Young Friend’s wedding. Late lunchtime kick off. The boys wouldn’t eat their lunch because they were full of lolly, so I took a packed lunch for the church. I put them in the purple velvet waistcoats I bought them for Son 2’s christening. Son 2 was christened when he was 8 months old.  His waistcoat did look a little strained across the tummy, but otherwise it did ok.  A 2 year old in 6m - 12m clothing. He really is small. I wonder if I should get him looked at. The vicar was grumpy, and stumbled all over the Dearly Beloved bit. No photos. No confetti here, there or there. No videos. And there’ll be a collecting plate at the back for you to pay to restore our historical but crumbling church. Son 2 dropped a mango smoothie all over the historical floorboards.  The bride was radiant, with a sunbeam smile which almost cheered the vicar up. Her parents cried throughout.  ”Chitty Bang Bang” said Son 2 during the ceremony. “Big Poo,” he said during the signing of the register. Outside they loved throwing confetti, and with other children, picked it up and threw it over each other after the bride and groom had moved on. It was a grey afternoon, but a great shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds as they got into their open-top wedding car to drive away.

Nanna babysat Son 2 while The Man and I took Son 1 to the Evening Do. The plan was that we would let him be grown up, and then leave early. We pushed him across The Town in The Big Pram - whoops, there went my good intentions - with him talking about Kung Fu Panda all the way.  He was delighted to find there were cameras on every table… although as a child of the digital age it was news to him that you have to wind film on.  He danced a bit in my arms, but he was incredibly tired.  I’d brought a pillow and a blanket, and he made himself a little bed behind a row of chairs and off he went to sleep. We stayed till midnight, decanted him back into the Big Pram and pushed him back home through The Town. A drunken reveller cat-called something like: “Take that child home! Call yourself a respectable mother?”  Clearly referring to the five-year-old in the pushchair. Can’t have meant anything else, can they?

1.  Outbreak

2.  Outside

3.  Outcast

Son 2 aged 19m has had a pimple on his chest for the last four days.  A red, acne-style beacon, sitting there, shining, glowing. “If there were any more of those, I’d think he had chickenpox” I’d vaguely thought.  Son 2 has had odd spots before, none of which have turned out to be anything other than odd spots.  Yesterday, Son 2 was scratching behind his ear like a flea-bitten dog.  This morning, Son 2 had: spots behind his ears, spots in his ears, spots on his chest, spots on his head, spots on his back, spots on his upper arms, spots on his baby thighs and a big, horrid one right on his willy.    I texted Wonder Nanny, to tell her that the person with the NNEB training was in charge of putting calamine lotion on the wrigglest child in the world.  She rang back. On Friday, with still, just that lone blister, she’d stripped him naked and checked him all over, so sure was she then that he had chickenpox.

Son 2 slept.  We got the paddling pool out.   Son 1 aged 4yr 7m checked with Next Door to see if they’d managed to borrow a pump. Nope. But Next Door did know how to get into a coconut, so Son 1 scampered round, and sat out in the yard with Next Door Neighbour and a hammer.  They smashed it.  He brought it round our side, testing it. “I don’t like it. It’s like the milk.”  He went inside, I stayed outside to try to blow the pool up.  I managed, but it’s already got a hole in it.  From where i folded it.  After 15 minutes I went back into the house.  It was strangely quiet.  “Son 1!”  No answer.  “Son 1! Where are you?”  “Mummy I’m here,” came a strange, faraway voice.  Upstairs?  I went to the bottom of the first floor stairs. “Mummy!  Mummy!”  He sounded scared, which made me scared. “Where are you!”  “Out here!”  I peered downstairs.  A littleface peered in at the front door.  He’d gone out the front door and shut it. ”How long have you been out there?”  “Fifty years.”  Stuck.  Which, coincidentally, is a word Son 2 has started using only today.   Falling between the legs of the upturned toddler chair.  “Stug!  Stug!” 

After lunch, we went down to the Discount Store in search of a puncture repair kit. Stopping off for Nappies.  The Discount Store had sold out.  We headed back, past The Church, where it was Family Tea Time service day.  ”We can’t go,” I told Son 1. “Son 2 will give the other children chickenpox.” “I want to go,” said Son 1.  He scampered up the steps while I battled with the shopping and The Big Pram.  The Vicar and His Wife came out. “It’s good to see you. We don’t know how many others there’ll be.” Code for: No-one Else Is Here. As we went in, a few more families headed in through each door.  Enough for it not to be embarrassing.  The theme was Fish.  Right up Son 2’s alley.  Son 1 fished for magnetic fish in a (puncture free) paddling pool.  Son 2 made Hand Fish.  I drew round his hand, cut it out and then he earnestly squidged gold glitter paint on it.  Then we did Casting Your Net Over The Other Side.  And then tea. Fish Fingers.   Son 2 tipped a beaker of squash down his front, soaking his jumper and vest.  ”Oh dear,” said the Vicar’s Wife.  “Have you got any other clothes with you?”  “Just his coat,” I said. “I’ll change him when I do his nappy.”  “Oh you can change him here, no one will mind,” she said.  They will if they see The Plague Of The Boils, I thought, and retreated to the privacy of the tiny loo.

1.  Coffee

2.  Church

3.  Presents

Son 1 aged 4y 3m longs for Christmas.  His tummy hurts.  He is excited.  Santa is coming tonight.  We have a deal that he can open his stocking and the big present under the tree he has his eye on - which he thinks is the Abyss underwater set but isn’t - and then he has to wait till Granny and Granddad get here.  He is also worn out.  Why are my children always so tired?  It can’t be anything to do with their five-hours-sleep-a-night full-time-working Christmas-Eve-but-I’ll-just-bash-a-blog out mother.  The Man went off to Marks for supplies with Son 2 aged 15m at about 9.  I prised Son 1 away from the telly and we met them, and Granny and Granddad for coffee.  Son 1 misbehaved, tired and excited.  Son 2, uncharacteristically, fell asleep in the Big Pram.

I took them to church.  The vicar wrote us a letter for a C of E school saying we attend from time to time, and I don’t want him to go to hell for lying.  We met some Wednesday friends there.  Son 1 and Older Brother tore up and down the aisles, played with the toys at the back and chattered, oblivious to proceedings.  Son 2 picked, uninterested, at the greenery arrangements.  In the middle of the reading Son 1 proclaimed “I need a poo,” and off we set, round pews, through doors, over concrete flooring, through an office, via a robing room (oops, that’s not it then) to the Tiny Loo.  We took Monday’s Birthday Boy with us.   Four of us couldn’t fit in, so we held the door open.  Birthday Boy is known for roaming, and wanted his Mummy.  Son 2 is unstoppable.  Son 1 took forever.  A flight of stairs plunged downwards yards from our nook.  After 10 years the Other Mother arrived, having only just realised I was three-up and out of control.  “This service isn’t very long,” I thought, as we warbled “Away in a Manger” to finish.  Then I realised we’d been waiting for Son 1 for about 20  minutes.

Son 1 put out a mince pie, a sherry and two gold chocolate coins for Santa, and a carrot and milk for the reindeer.  He was allowed to eat a chocolate coin to make sure they were good enough for Santa.  Then he decided to leave only one chocolate coin for Santa, and to put the other one back in his Trick or Treat bucket.  We decided he could leave two small ones out for Santa, but he could eat the big one.   Both boys were asleep at 7pm.  Who’s SuperMummy?  Granny and Granddad babysat, and we went round to our friends’.  We were supposed to be staying for one and then going to the pub, but they had crisps, and champagne, and an open fire, and we were talking and drinking and drinking and talking and then we had to go because G and G don’t really do Late.  Back home I put chocolate decorations on the tree, gold coins in the treasure chest and filled the stockings (not enough stocking fillers, where’s open at midnight on Christmas Eve?) while The Man heaved bags of presents down the stairs and piled them under the tree.  I need to get up at 6am to see to the turkey.  I can’t wait for the morning to come.

1.   Doing Nothing

2.   Arrivals 

3.  The Italian

It was very important to Do Nothing today, because otherwise the boys will never make it through tomorrow.  Son 2 aged 8m is still waking early - 0545 today, with another mighty poo.   We had a 1000 appointment with the Vicar at The Church.  Son 1 aged 3 and a half was worn out, and Son 2 was desperate for a sleep, so we took both the big pram and the buggy into The Town.  At The Church Son 1 scampered off to the toy corner while the Vicar talked us through the ceremony.  Back home The Man child-minded while I went to get the cake… then I gave the boys their lunch while he changed sheets and moved us out of our room.  We got both boys to sleep after lunch. 

The Neighbours rent their house out in the summer, and Granny and Grandpa have booked a week for the christening.  They arrived just as I was heading out to the shops for booze.  Son 2 was up with G and G, and The Very Old Friends were there when I got back, and walked into town with me on my second trip.  Godfather 1 was there when I got back from trip 2.  I woke Son 1, he sat on my knee, hot, red-faced and shy while cups of tea were had.  Then when G and G got up to go next door, he said  ”I’ll get my shoes.” And he trotted off behind them.   Younger Sister and Godfather 2 arrived, bearing piles of presents for Son 1.  Godfather 2 dashed into town to buy pants.  And returned with vast quantities of alcohol.  

Younger Sister and Godfather 2 went out for dinner with Mother, Elder Sister and Brother Etc.   We were supposed to be Doing Nothing, but G and G volunteered to babysit.  We tested out the baby monitor for next door, and it worked - hooray.  We went to the Italian a few doors down with the Very Old Friends and Godfather 1.   Fish and pizza.  The Very Old Friends and Godfather 1 hadn’t met before, so they did some life-story swapping.  They’re all child-free so there was very little conversation about children, instead travel, holidays, The Past, getting older… and habits of old married couples.  Then back home.  Son 2 had been coughing, so G and G were in our lounge.  They said good night, and we broke out the whisky.  The Very Old Friends remembered the bottles from last time they were down for Son 1’s christening.  Whisky used to be an interest of mine.  But as I’ve been trying to conceive, pregnant, or breastfeeding for 8 years I’ve stopped drinking it.  I was the first to wimp out and go to bed… in Son 2’s room, without waking him up.