1.  Cold Remedy

2.  Cold Symptoms

3.  Cold Water

Feeling very rough today, so I didn’t go into The Office. I had a pile of work to do at home, and planned to get a kip in the afternoon while Wonder Nanny took the boys out.   Son 2 aged 21m woke, and we did his books session. Son 1 aged 4y 8m joined us. i put the boys in front of the telly a few minutes before Wonder Nanny was due, and went upstairs for a Tea Tree bath. Not enough hot water.  Strange, because we usually only have hot water problems if we’ve had a set of back-to-back showers. 

Wonder Nanny had arranged to go to a playground to see her Nanny friend with the two little boys she looks after. She made a picnic and off the three of them went. For the first time ever, I was glad to see them go. I worked through the morning, and then walked into The Town for a break. Big mistake. I wasn’t up to it and didn’t really  recover. I had lunch and went to bed. I was woken at 3.45pm by a little face beside me: “Hello sweetie, are you all right?”

Wonder Nanny gave the boys their tea and left. And again, they went loopy.  I couldn’t really cope. I tried washing a beaker for Son 2’s bedtime milk. No hot water.  This meant Completely No Hot Water. I rang The Man, who, as this is a Positive Blog, I shall described as Not Very Much Help. i rang a plumber who can’t come till Thursday morning.  I boiled a kettle.  In my 70s childhood our council house had no central heating and no hot water. Boiling a kettle always marked the start of wash time.  Mind you, even then we had an immersion heater.  I have no idea where ours is, and The Man can’t remember.  I washed the boys one at a time in the bathroom sink, Son 2 first.  By the time I came to dry Son 1, I’d had enough.  No hot water, flu-stricken, single mother, and two rowdy, noisy, out-of-control boys.  Son 1 bounced and swirled as I tried to dry him. “Son 1 will you - ” “- Bugger off!” he said, laughing madly, his eyes dancing. He detected my I think I’ll ignore this thought. “Bugger off, bugger off, bugger off!”  “I don’t know where you’ve got that disgusting language,” I said. “Bugger off, bugger off, bugger off,” he said, pointing both fingers at me.  ”Mummy, do you want me to Bugger Off?”  he giggled.  No. But I do want you to shut the f*** up.  I think that thought stayed in my head. I suppose I will find out at bath time tomorrow.

1.  Off Colour

2.  Off Day

3.  Off Switch

The Man left ridiculously early on a Business Trip.  I was up at 6am, to tidy up, get the lunches, sort out the clothes, chop chop busy busy work work bang bang. The boys slept and slept.  Oh for them to lie in their comas on a day when I can sleep in as well. I showered and did my hair and make up. Still no sign of life.  I woke Son 2 aged 21 m and did his reading with him.  I woke Son 1 aged 4y 8m. He flopped on to the double bed in Son 2’s room.  Son 1 has a cough, his throat sounds sore and he was clearly exhausted. Wonder Nanny arrived and we got him in his uniform. We said our goodbyes and off I drove. I looked at him in the rearview mirror. He was flopped in his car seat, his head propped by the side rest, his eyes glazed and staring.  I spun round and took him home. 

I too am blatted by the lurgy, and had a wretched day at The Office.  Being positive, I saw a colleague on maternity leave who’s returned one of Son 1’s potties for Son 2 to try.  But throughout the day I got more fluey, and I really shouldn’t be driving.  Just little things go, like my ability to judge speed and distance. After work I took about 4 goes to reverse park the car outside the house. I looked up and Wonder Nanny, Son 1 and Son 2 were sitting in the window clapping and laughing. Wonder Nanny said they’d been fine, they’d both had a sleep, she’d kept them calpol-d up and they’d had a quiet day. She left. 

And they sprouted horns.  I was feeling dog rough.  i put Son 2 in his cot, sang him his lullabies, did my usual Night Night with my hand on him, left to go into Son 1 and hell was unleashed. He cried and screamed. “Mummeee! Mummmmeee! Mummmeee!” It went on and on and on. One of those Oh-God-I-Should-Have-Gone-To-Him-Earlier-But-I-Can’t-Now-Because-He’ll-Just-Scream-Forever-Next-Time horrors.  All through Son 1’s stories. When it finally stopped, I tiptoed in to check him. And he was still awake, lying exhausted on the pillow. As soon as he saw me he started again. I gave him milk, held him, put him down, stroked him, kissed him, said Good Night and left. “Mummmeeee!”  I got down from Son 1 at 20 to 8.  By 8 he was already downstairs again, crawling around under the washing.  “Come child, you have delighted us enough,” I said, serenely.  All right then.  Cold-ridden, tired, pissed off, I snapped. “Bugger off Son 1, this is Mummy Time.” He burst into tears and scampered upstairs. I ate, worked and rang a colleague from The Office. And again, down came a little ghostie. ”I couldn’t hear you and I was worried sick about you.” I put a fleece on him, gave him a hot chocolate and let him sit there and watch the mundanity of my late evening world of housework.  “Can I wee in the potty?” he asked.  “No,” I said, 17 times. “Why?” “Because I can’t be bothered to clean it out.”  He went for a wee. He did it in the potty. He tried to empty it himself.  I cleared up the wee from the loo seat, the side of the loo, the loo floor and washed the potty out.

1.  Quack

2.  Oink

3.  Bullseye

A grim weather forecast for The Trade Show.  Showers, some heavy and prolonged. 30 - 70mm of rain.  Take wellies and jumpers, said the weatherwoman.  I ummed and ah-ed over whether Son 1 aged 4y 8m and Son 2 aged 20m should go. In the end I couldn’t let a weather forecast get in the way of a Great Adventure.  Wonder Nanny and I got the car packed up and off we zoomed. On the way we discussed our action plan. Son 2 was still making pig noises.  The Trade Show is Big On Pigs. But the pigs are miles away from the Office Stand.  Wonder Nanny has never been To The Pigs.   if it wasn’t raining when we got there, we decided, I would take them all over to The Pigs.  Son 1 began a long, loud, annoying protest.  He wanted to Hook A Duck.  We ran into grindingly slow Trade Show traffic.  Son 1 banged on and on about Hooking A Duck.  He sang a song about Hooking Ducks. ”Do you think he wants to Hook A Duck?” I asked Wonder Nanny, “I did hear it mentioned,” she said.

We yomped over to The Pigs. We saw some little cows and calfs first, being walked around a little ring by children in white coats.  A cow walked up to Son 2 and mooed like a lion.  He buried his head in my shoulder.  We found The Pigs and Son 2 was happy as… er… a pig in muck.  We went from pen to pen looking for the oinkiest pigs, the squeakiest pigs, the biggest pigs and the prettiest pigs.  Son 2 oinked at them all, and pointed to the next pen, again and again.  There was, Babe-like, a pig ring. “That one’s doing a poo,”  said Son 1.  It’s never too late to learn a new thing every day.  Pigs have MASSIVE testicles. 

Packa-macked and rain covered, the boys and Wonder Nanny headed off. I stayed on The Stand. We met for lunch. Son 2 was asleep in the buggy.  Son 2 never sleeps for me in the buggy.  Bands blared in the background, people bumped the pushchair, musicians and dancers wandered back and forth.  He didn’t stir.  Son 1 had won a bow and arrow, and a sword on Hook A Duck. After lunch they went off to the Play Tent. I hadn’t finished by the time they got back, so they waited in a rest area.  When I arrived,  some Office colleagues were teaching Son 1 to shoot his arrows at some doors.  Son 2 was swinging around with Son 1’s new sword, also to cheers and laughter from my colleagues. We got home very late, Son 2 clinging and Son 1 screaming with fatigue.  And now they will both rest demurely all day tomorrow to make life easy for me.

1.  Junior Showtime

2.  Long-Standing

3.  Learning To Talk

Days 1 and 2 of The Trade Show.  Son 1 aged 4y 8m and Son 2 aged 20m went with Wonder Nanny yesterday.  They apparently walked round, went on rides, looked at animals (pig and mooing noises from Son 2,) collected stickers, pencils and assorted oddments from stands, had lunch and then went in the Play Tent till I collected them.  Son 2 appeared to have also found a shirt-painting stand.  He was in white linen. I told Wonder Nanny not to worry about the shirt as You Can Get Anything Out Of Linen.  Son 2 was cheerfully testing the theory, with strips and splodges of paint, ice cream and pen all over him.  The children painting in the Play Tent were using washing up bowls to clean their paintbrushes, so there were large bowls of shallow, deeply coloured water perched on kiddies’ chairs.  Son 2 had borrowed a tea cup from a toy box and was using it to scoop out blue water and tip it on the floor in front of him.  Nice.

Son 2 was having a day with Wonder Nanny, and Son 1 was at Nursery today. We got him there on time, which was a Good Thing, and he plopped down, cross-legged, with the other children with nary a glance up at me.  I took a colleague into The Trade Show, and we had a Good Day.  Very busy, great people, saw loads of contacts, walked miles, worked hard, left late. As I was leaving I rang home to tell The Man to start putting the boys to bed without me.  Wonder Nanny answered.  Past her leaving time. ”Isn’t The Man back yet?” “No… I  know he was picking up Son 1, but we’ve not seen them here.”  I rang The Man.  Doing a Big Shop with Son 1. Hadn’t worried about Wonder Nanny and Son 2  because he’d assumed I’d be home.  Oh Dear. 

 Back home, Son 2 hung round my neck, Son 1 screamed and squealed.  “Do you want to go to the Trade Show again tomorrow?” I asked Son 2.  He nodded, made his pig noise, and moo-ed.  He really does understand everything.  His speech bounds onwards: “Up Up Up,” is a new favourite, said mostly with two arms wound round my leg as I try to shake him off so I can get things out the oven. He has recognisable words for bread, toast, butter, cheese, milk, juice, tea, shoes, chair, bath, bubble, bus, book, bear, boat, cat, dog, stop, spot, please, peas, ice cream, chocolate, toes… I must do a proper list one evening. His most used sentence is “And me!”  Which he uses indiscriminately every time I ask Son 1 if he wants something.

1.  Cuddling

2.  Waiting

3.  Laughing

Court didn’t start till 1030, so, in principle, I had a nice slow start this morning.   Son 2 aged 20m woke up and I snuggled in the Double Bed with him.  The child who has never liked lying still in bed is  becoming delightfully tolerant of 15 - 20 minutes’ cuddling.  I pin my hopes on his going back to sleep; he pretends to have a doze and then crawls off with an “Up.” I put Cars on for Son 2 aged 4y 8m and  Son 2 and I did some books.  Bear Hunt was a great success.  The Man rang… and we all sat in the bay window and waited for Wonder Nanny. 

Court didn’t actually start till very late.  I’m getting to like the waiting around. Everyone brings books and papers but we don’t read them, we just sit and chat, chat, chat.  It’s very Big Brother/Lost, as people’s backgrounds and stories slowly emerge.  I was the cliffhanger today.  “Was the baby all right yesterday?”  Of course he was. It was Mummy who suffered.   

I walked past the window as I got home and saw Wonder Nanny, Son 1 and Son 2 sitting demurely at the table having tea. And then within seconds of my arriving, the whole thing had disintegrated. Son 2 was wailing to be picked up, Son 1 was in a sulk and the noise levels were rocketing.   “I think I’d better have a glass of wine,” I said. Son 2 shrieked in excitement and leaned over my shoulder.  He was pointing at the wine rack.  20 months old and he knows his way round alcohol.  Oops, said Bridget. We waved Wonder Nanny off.  We had a pretty good natured books and bathtime… with both boys standing up in the shower together, looking wet and shiny and gorgeous.  After, we went into Son 1’s room, where I read How Does A Dinosaur Say Goodnight to both of them before I take Son 2 off to sleep.  They both started blowing brilliantly rude-sounding raspberries on my tummy, reducing all three of us to helpless laughter.  Son 1 is a master at comedy slobby farty noises… and Son 2 did some crackers too.  They both loved making me laugh.  Even when I was putting Son 2 down in his cot, with the usual bend my head right over to be near his, he was still trying to find something soft to use for flobber noises.

1.  Watching The Clock

2.  Losing The Way

3.  Finding The Time

I always try never to wish my boys’ childhoods away, but when they are grown I will not miss day after day after day of mad, face-heating, lip-biting, traffic-cursing, watch-glancing panic trying to get Son 1 aged 4y 8m out of Daycare/Nursery/Tea Club by closing.    He was sitting on a  little plastic chair, knock-kneed, clutching his schoolbag, his swimming bag and his blazer, watching telly while a couple of teachers stood chatting in their coats.  However. He had a big Well Done sticker on his jumper, and a certificate proclaiming him “Star Of The Week.” For Being A Good Friend, A Good Worker and A Good Boy.

I’d bought him an ELC golf set at lunchtime, because he won both his races in his swimming gala yesterday.  25m butterfly and backstroke.   Oh all right then, they do half the pool, four at a time, on noodles helped by teachers. But he did win, and he of course has his present for Trying Hard rather than Being Clever.   The ELC was giving away balloons, so the backseat toy tally on the way home was two plastic golf clubs, two plastic balls and two green balloons.  Wonder Nanny was helping out her Other Family, looking after their boys while the parents were at a wedding.  I was driving to theirs to pick up Son 2 aged 20m.  I’ve never been, and had arranged to ring Wonder Nanny to get directions on our way over.  I fished in my bag for my phone.  Couldn’t find it. Stopped at a garage. Took the bag, the front seat, and the car to pieces.  No phone. In another panic, I slid the car seat back. There was a loud explosion and a wail from the back seat.  I’d reversed over an Early Learning Centre balloon.   

I drove all the way home. Rang Wonder Nanny from the house phone. Checked the house answer phone. Rang the mobile, no reply.  Went out to the double-parked car, where Son 1 had fallen asleep.   Rang the mobile.  Heard the mobile. Inside an envelope in my bag. Into car. Out to Other Family’s.  When Son 2 saw me he laughed and laughed and clapped his hands. That’s what I needed.  A round of applause just for turning up.  On the trip back, Son 1 spotted a playground, and from then on, all the way back whined and whinged to go there. I have bought a new childcare book. I used all its techniques at teatime, and although it went on forever, and although Son 1 had three lollies for pudding… it was a lot easier than normal and I didn’t need a glass of wine. 

Last night, desperate to get out to Book Club, I told Son 1 “I’m going now, but tomorrow, you can have as many books as you like, and I will read them all.”  Subtext. He’ll fall asleep in the third one. 12 books.  I didn’t get downstairs again till twenty to ten…

1.  Explorer

2.  Miracle Worker  

3.  Communicator

I worked long and late last night.  At midnight I heard coughing from upstairs, then creaking, then little mouse footprints. I peered up into the gloom. “Son 1, I can’t see you up there, it’s too dark. If you’re there, come on down.” A little wraith aged 4y 7m in white pyjamas plopped down the stairs.  I switched the computer off and we went downstairs to make my go-to-bed cup of peppermint tea. He wanted something to eat.  I gave him a yoghurt, and he sat at the dining table, scoffing it. Upstairs I put him in the Big Bed while I got ready for bed.  “I’m going to have a little read before I go to sleep,” I said, getting my book out.  “I want your eyebrow,” he said, his little fingers heading straight for it. I put the light out and fell asleep straight away. No idea what he did.

Son 2 aged 19m’s spots are starting to scab over, and he’s starting to pick them off.  He is using the “boh” sound he does for “Box” for his spots… gestures at his tummy and goes “Boh!”  “Are they sore?” I asked.  He nodded madly.  Poor, poor little cherub. Son 1 and I took out a library book with pictures of leopards, ladybirds, spotted fish, giraffes, peacocks, ocelots, dalmatians etc. It’s called “Lots Of Spots.” Well, we think it’s funny.   Wonder Nanny, who is Practically Perfect,  said “Aqueous Calamine Cream.  Only Superdrug sell it. Best thing for chickenpox.”  Son 2 has been so much better since we started slathering him in it.  His willy and groin area have calmed down a bit, but the spots are still raging.  The third nipple on his chest which started it all off is the size of a 5p.

I sat on the bed reading to Son 2 this morning.  For once, Son 1, upstairs watching cartoon nuclear wars on CITV, didn’t disturb us.  Oh no, spoke too soon.  Plodding down the stairs.   Carrying the phone to me.  The Man says he will be back tomorrow night.  He says his flights are booked. I will believe it when I see it.  Son 1 hadn’t finished with him and took the phone back.  “No more adventures, Daddy, if they’re going to take this long.”

1.  Box

2.  Tea

3.  Rain

Son 1 aged 4y 7m wanted a Big Box to make a den from.  One of his friends has one. So I lugged a huge dishwasher box home from The Office on Monday, and we made it into a house this morning.  A stable door, a window with shutters, and a skylight were my contributions. Son 1 has written his name on it and made a picture to hang up wonkily inside.  Son 2 aged 19m has drawn on the sides in felt tip pen.  “Boh!” he said, pointing. “Boh!” They were supposed to be getting on with playing while I made pancakes for breakfast.  It worked, kind of.   I struggle with pancake making. I burn or undercook, I never get the oil right, I’m rubbish at flipping them.  Wonder Nanny knocks out perfect examples every time.  She doesn’t use oil. “It’s a non-stick pan.”  I never understood that logic, but this morning I went with it. No oil.  Perfect pancakes.  They gobbled them up. 

Son 2 is still in hell with chickenpox. He woke up this morning boiling hot, scratching and howling.  I gave him milk, put him in a bicarb bath and let the shower run on his back.   One set of Wednesday friends didn’t come today, but the Mother was ill, so I’m hoping that as the reason.  We walked into town to meet the other. There was a book about a character with Son 2’s (unusual) name in Oxfam, so I bought it.  And Son 1 had been promised a Pirate Lego set for being good while Son 2 got all the Mummy Time. “Boog!” said Son 2.  We had coffee at one end of town, and then another coffee at the other.  I spent most of the afternoon putting the Pirate Lego set together. That’ll be why the box said 6 - 12 then. I got fed up with how much time I was spending on Pages 1 - 37 instructions, with two other sections to follow. Son 1 said “Well done Mummy.  You’re doing a great job.  Thank you very much for buying me my pirates.”  The pat on the head did the trick, and I persevered.  Again, I started grumbling.  I wanted to spend time with Son 1 and Son 2, not fish poxy two-bit Lego brick things out of piles of other poxy two-bit brick things. ”Well done Mummy,” said Son 1.  “Thank you for helping me.”  My heart sang.  There was a knock on the door.  The Wednesday Mummy, taking pity on me because The Man’s Business Trip goes On and On, had brought round some home-made sauce for us.  “Tee!” pointed Son 2 at the pan as the pasta boiled. 

Books and Bath and Bed was therefore earlier and more successful than other days this week. I am still starting off with a glass of wine. Son 2 and I did his books. I wanted Tiddler. He insisted on “Oceans,” which is pictures of dolphins and sharks and whales and seahorses and jellyfish etc. In the bath I washed his hair to get today’s calamine out before I slathered him again. He screamed.   Surely this is the worst his spots can get. He has great flaming lines of them down his back and his groin is a mess. “Wee wee,” he said, sitting in the bicarb-ed bath.  Wee wee is wee, but it is also willy. Translation: “My willy hurts.”  And then he pointed up at the shower head and said:  “Rain.”

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.  Comprehending

2.  Coconuts

3.  Clarifying

Son 2 aged 19m wept, tantrumed and screamed as Son 1 aged 4y 7m and I left the house this morning.  In Wonder Nanny’s arms, he gazed through the window at us as we got in the car.  It’s borne in on me that the poor little mite has no way of understanding why Mummy and Son 1 are going off together and leaving him.   Memo.  Lots of books about school/nursery from now on.   Stick with him the whole weekend.    He started his tantrum about 20 minutes before we left, when I did my usual slow, clear and repetitive “Mummy and Son 1 are going to say goodbye.”  So Being Positive, another Sign Of Excellent Receptive Language.

Son 1 and I went to Tesco for a Big Shop after I picked him up from Nursery.  He was amazingly well-behaved.   We spotted marked-down coconuts in the yellow-sticker trays.  “My whole life I have always wanted a coconut,” he said, sitting in the 15 kg max weight seat and stripping some of the fibre off the shell.  “Mummy how do we open it?”  ” I don’t know, I can’t remember.  I thought you wanted to make a hole in it and drink the milk. ” “Yes I do, but what shall we use?”  “I don’t know, we’ll have to wait till we get home and see what we’ve got.  We used to have hours of fun trying to get into coconuts when I was small.”  “What did you do to get in?”  “Don’t know, my dad used to do it. Smashed them to smithereens.”  “How did he smash them?”  “Can’t remember. I think he used to just throw them on the floor, very hard.”  Son 1 peered down over the side of the shopping trolley.    ”Don’t even think about it,” I growled.

He behaved impeccably, didn’t pester, didn’t whine, got down from the trolley and trotted around happily holding his coconut. “They have these in Aloha Scooby Doo.”  So back home I showed him the paddling pool I’d bought from TK Maxx.  He can’t wait.  But the weather has turned, and a loud lightning/driving rain thunderstorm moved slowly over us this evening.  “I don’t mind playing in it in the rain.”  I got into a coconut hole with a metal skewer.  Wonder Nanny stuck a straw in so Son 1 could, like Shaggy and Scooby drink the milk.  “I don’t like it.”   Son 1 brought Son 2 a book about fish back from Nursery.  Son 2 is obsessed with it.   He has a word for Shark, and Boat, and Bus, and Please, and Banana, and Car, and Down, and Upstairs and Outside, and Bubble.  Still not quite recognisable to anyone except those who adore him… but we think he is a Miraculous, Magical Marvel.