Well Done, Mummy

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.”

A Ray

1.  I Told You I Was Trouble

2.  Trying To Fix You

3.  Sunshine On A Rainy Day

Son 2 aged 19m’s skin is awful.  The blisters are angry, red and wet.  Except the big ones behind his ear and on his willy, which are red round the bottom with a huge, wet, white blob on the top.  There are so many red blotchy ones in his nappy creases that they all run together in an inflamed red line.  They’re all over his head and today, they’ve just started popping out on his face.  Serve me right for being so precious about the scar on his lip.  Now he’s got a boil on his eyebrow and a crop of them on his cheek.  His nappy area is so bad that this morning I let him roam nappy free. He was in the kitchen playing with some toys, I was upstairs with the ironing. ”Wee wee!” I heard him call.  I went down.  He had pooed and weed in the big plastic toybox, smeared poo all over the sides, trod wee all around the kitchen and had brown smudges of poo on his legs.  Half an hour later he did another one, and this time smeared my posh pyjamas. I gave up and put us both in the shower. After I’d finished, he sat there with the shower trained on the spots on his back, staring ahead vacantly. 

I took him down to the Lounge to calamine him up.  He batted my hands away. Son 1 aged 4y 7m was interested in the cotton wool balls.  “You could paint Son 2’s spots if we found you a brush,” I said absently.  He vanished. Wonder Nanny and I continued with the task in hand.  Really hard.  Son 2 does not like being calamined. He is a fast, sure, controlled mover and we are no match for him.  Son 1 returned with a paintbrush.  I felt the bristles. “No you can’t use that on his spots. It’s too rough. I’ll go and find you a make up brush.” ” I like this one,” said Son 1. “It’s blue. “ When I came back down, Son 2 was standing naked in the sunshine on the windowseat, dabbing his own spots with a great wadge of cotton wool, while Wonder Nanny and Son 1 coloured in the rest of him.

I had booked leave today, and Son 1 wanted to go to the Aquarium. We arrived and had lunch. Son 2 was grouchy, whining and clingy. He’s eating very little at the moment, but grabbing sweet things whenever he can. There may be trouble ahead.  We went round, Son 1 chirping excitedly, Son 2 pointing and demanding to be lifted up. ”Dzar!” he can say, in a clear word meant to be Shark.  And, the triumph: “Ray!”  “Ray!” at the big rays. Clear, correct, and repeated at the top of his little boy voice, often.  Inspired, when I got home I wrote out all the words he can say.  He’s got a vocabulary of about 50 words, which I just didn’t realise.  All this time I’ve been Not Worrying Because Second Children Talk Later… when in fact he’s been building up his speech quite nicely.

Where’s Spot?

1.  Spot The Difference

2.  Spot The Dog

3.  Hitting The Spot

I have a Lovely Chair.  Brown leather, lilo-like back, big round arms, and a matching stool.  It was chosen, way BC, after a lot of research, from John Lewis, Oxford Street.  Flipping through the big leather swatches on the furniture floor with the helpful salesman.  Ordered.  Made for us. Delivered.   The Man envies me my Lovely Chair, and wants to get another.  Wiped out by our gold-plated childcare, we never will.   This morning I left Son 1 aged 4y 7m and Son 2 aged 19m watching The Wiggles while I showered,  dressed, and did my hair and make up.  I was nearly finished, when a voice bellowed “Mummy!  Son 2’s done a wee!”  Son 2, who is seriously and sickenly spotty,  had removed his trousers and nappy, and was sitting bare-bottomed on my Lovely Chair, watching telly.  In a deep lake of wee.   The leather in the Lovely Chair is so good that none of it had soaked away.  So when I moved the cushion it all ran and spilled.    

Son 2’s spots are just awful.  There are hundreds of them.  I had to go to The Office, and rang home at lunchtime.  He was fine, said Wonder Nanny, who’d taken him out to her Mum’s to play with the cats. I picked up Son 1 so late I barely made it there before closedown.  “Did I stay till the end for a special treat?” he asked.  We were back embarrassingly late.  “Son’s had a really good day,” said Wonder Nanny. “No scratching, and laughing all day long.”  She left. Son 2 burst into tears and scratched his ears off.  A toy dalmatian pup, free with the Disney film, has emerged from the toy pile on its own. Son 1 played with it. We hunted out its mate. I took off Son 2’s trousers to change him, but he escaped and waddled, bare-legged into the hall. ”Son 2! I need to change that pooey nappy!”  The nappy landed on the changing mat with a heavy splat.  He really is getting good at taking his nappy off.  And he already knew how to throw.  

His groin is horrible, with blisters on his willy and in all his little baby creases.  They didn’t seem to bother him till I slathered them in calamine lotion and then he cried real tears.  We went upstairs and did Where’s Spot as one of our books.  I put a ton of bicarb in the bath, on the advice of a colleague from The Office.  Poor Son 2.  Spots all over his back with hardly any bare skin in between.  All over his front.  In his hair, in his ears, behind his ears. Poor miserable little sausage.  He cried and cried when I got him out of the bath, objected loudly  to the calamine and was then worn out and inconsolable.  Even though I was incredibly late getting them to bed, I was relaxed and patient all the way through.  Possibly linked to my swapping my usual bathtime cup of tea for a very large glass of Sauvignon Blanc.  A Marvellous Mummy Am I.

Stuck

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.

Rain

1.  Pool

2   Party 

3.  Playtime

Bloody paddling pool. When I got to bed, well after 12 last night, I thought “At least we can have a lie in tomorrow.”  0615.  Son 2 aged 19m wailing.  I ignored him.  He quietened.  A face appeared in mine. “Son 2’s awake.” “No-he-isn’t.-He-went-backtosleep.” Brightly: “Can we get up so I can look at that paddling pool?”  Son 1 aged 4y 7m and Son 2 pulled it out.  The box is size of a chessboard.  The deflated, folded-up pool is size of a parachute.    The Baby Was Born and could not be shoved back in.  One glance told me I couldn’t blow it up on my own. ”I think we’ll need a pump.  Next Door might have one. We’ll ask when they’re up.”  Son 1, still in his pyjamas, put his shoes on. ”I’ll go and see Next Door.” It wasn’t yet 7am. I blew a couple of inflatable toys up and they played with them.  “When can we put water in it?” “At Nanna’s.  Although you might not be able to go outside when we get there.   The forecast is for very heavy rain.”  “I don’t mind the rain,” said Son 1.

We went to a Nursery Fancy Dress party.  I had a good time and I think the children enjoyed themselves.  Son 1, who’s serene and unselfconscious about fancy dress and wanders round in pirate or Power Ranger gear when there is no occasion at all, refused to wear any of his costumes.  I didn’t question it.   A children’s entertainer, balloons and many many children.  The entertainer had apparently been doing children’s parties for 20 years.  Son 1 and Son 2 sat in for Pass The Parcel.  Son 2 got a lolly.  I could almost hear his brand-new teeth dissolving in the sugar as he crunched.  Their lunch consisted of:  the chocolate icing off the top of several fairy cakes, a chocolate biscuit.  Some iced biscuit rings.  Orange squash.   A dentist mother told me one day wouldn’t hurt, it was when it was spread over many many days that the damage happened.  I spoke to another mother who, it transpired, lives within a mile of us in The Town.   And she has A Girl!  Son 1’s new best friend,  I instantly decided.  As we walked back to the car: “Guess what, Son 1?  X lives very near to us!” “I don’t like X.”  “You probably don’t know her very well.  You can invite her to the house to get to know her better.”  “She’s not my friend.”  “Not yet, but – ” “I don’t like her.” “Why not?” “She’s a Gal.”

We got to Nanna’s via a Wednesday Friend to pick up their electric  pump. I stood outside Nanna’s house in the Arctic wind and lashing rain, pumping up the paddling pool from the cigarette lighter. Son 1 was beside himself with excitement.  They both went outside with it, we added water and stood back.  The sky was black with great heavy clouds rolling across without a break. It was very cold, very wet and very windy.  Son 2 burst into shivering tears and I took him inside.  Nanna had prepare a tea which was waiting in the kitchen.  Son 2 just pointed at it all and demanded to eat.  In the end we moved tea early, and they went back in the paddling pool after.  And then real, heavy, horrible rain came in. “Rain,” said Son 2, as it hammered against the windows. ”Rain.  Rain. Rain.”  After they’d gone to sleep I had to go out to the car in a cold monsoon and gather up the damp, half-deflated paddling pool, and a couple of bags I’d left.  within two trips I was soaked and freezing.  “Rain,” I thought. “Rain, rain, rain.”

Milk And Fibre

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.

Artists

1. Abstract

2. Beachscapes

3. Still Life

Charging out of the house to The Rockpool Beach to see the Wednesday Friends.  Well, that was the idea.  Son 1 aged 4y 7m was watching telly, I was making a picnic and Son 2 aged 19m was in his highchair eating his pancake.  He started to cry. And cling. And flop.  ”Son 2, would you like to go to bed?”  He nodded vigorously.   Son 2 never wants to sleep when I am around.  We lay down on the bed together.  Little arms round my neck.  A face wedged against my cheek. Fists in my hair. Adorable. When he was finally asleep, I went back downstairs.  Son 1, who at 7am had polished off half a can of rice pudding, was in the kitchen demanding a pancake.  I warmed up Son 2’s and gave that to him with a maple syrup dip.  It vanished.  “Can I paint my trains?”  Thomas Wooden Railway paint-your-own carriages.  A TK Maxx find.  We got out the trains and the red, yellow and blue paint.  He mixed red and blue to make purple. ”It works!”  And then blue and yellow for green, and red and yellow for orange.  “Does it always make green when you  mix blue and yellow?”  “Yes.”  “Why?”  “It’s to do with the range of frequencies of reflected light in the visible part of the spectrum darling.” “What, Mummy?” ”I don’t know, it just does.”  He mixed and stared, fascinated and delighted as his new colours emerged.   ”It’s very clever.”  He’s right. It is.  And the purple, green and orange Wooden Trains look great too.

Son 1’s new wetsuit fits, and he likes it. Key moment in life.  The Day He Wore A Wetsuit To The Beach for the first time.  It was much colder than I expected, so I put Son 2 in his swimming costume wetsuit and a sunsuit.  Son 1 ran off with Best Friend, his brother and the Three Year Old Friend.  Son 2 clung but got progressively more bold and wandered off to play in rockpools.  I followed him, knowing Son 1 would soon materialise.  The pack of boys leapt from rock to rock.  The Lady From The Beach Cafe came down with her camera and some photos. Unexpectedly, she is also an artist, and the photos were pictures of her work. Beach scenes with little figures in them.  Could she take pictures of the children to use when she does her beach scenes?  She finds it hard these days asking people.  We have known the Lady From the Beach Cafe for nearly four years. She works seven days a week from Spring till Autumn.  We knew she has Adventures in winter, but we didn’t know she was a trained and talented artist.  We said yes.  “I can’t do any painting till October.  And I’ll probably make it a sunny day.  And put them with different parents.” “Why, aren’t we photogenic enough?” I asked. 

Son 1 and Best Friend shrieked. They were standing on a rock and the incoming tide had cut them off.  Best Friend’s mother went to rescue them.  Best Friend couldn’t have got through the ten inches of water without soaking his trousers.  Son 1 could have waded through but wouldn’t.  And wouldn’t go to Best Friend’s Mum.  Wanted me.  So Son 2 and I tottered over to help him across.  The tide raced in at an almost menacing rate, and we moved up the beach several times. Eventually we decamped to the lower promenade, where Son 2 tried stealing all the Beach Cafe’s Toys For Sale. To distract him from the Lady’s large beach ball, I fished in the beach bag for ours, an ancient CBeebies comic freebie. I turned back and he was hanging over the edge of the 15 foot drop to the beach below, trying to throw stones down.  “Ball!” he said, tottering back for it.  War ensued as the bigger children removed it from him. Back home they watched Boogie Beebies while I made cauliflower and pasta in cheese sauce with leek, onion and garlic. We had veg box asparagus with it.  Wolfed.  “More,” commanded Son 2.  Son 1 ate his cauli cheese and had seconds of asparagus.  I felt like A Good Mother.

Beautiful

1.  Hair Brush

2.  Paint Brush

3.  Tooth Brush

Son 1 aged 4y 6m and Son 2 aged 19m slept in till 7am.  Eight hours’ sleep.  Unheard of.  Amazing.  Carved on stone tablets as A Good Thing.  Son 1 aged 4y 6m needed a wee and I had beaten him to it.  Sitting on the floor, his legs in his little “W” shape, he gazed up at me.  There is not another man alive who would look at me, sitting on the loo, in my pyjamas, no make up, mad professor hair, and say: “You’re so beautiful.”

I left The Office late, again.  Another phone call to Wonder Nanny.  Another “No Worries,” from her.   I got home to a silent house.  They were all outside.  Son 1 naked, painting the shed with water and a big brush.  Son 2 stripped down to his nappy, playing with a plastic toy box full of water.  Son 1 hopped around, whooping, excited.  Son 2 was beside himself at seeing me, and then burst into tears as a full paintbrush-load of cold water was flicked all over him by an out-of-control Son 1. 

Books, bath, bed.  Son 2 was in the bath, Son 1 and I were cleaning his teeth.  Two brushrounds downstairs, two brushrounds upstairs, One For Luck and A Good Old Spit in the sink between each one.  Son 1 has added another part to the ritual.  We press our faces together photo-fashion, look in the mirror and smile.   This evening he looked at our reflections and again, out of the blue said  ”You are beautiful, Mummy.”  I had them both in bed and asleep before 8pm, which considering the time I got back, was another Very Good Thing Indeed.

A School Day

1.  Domestic Science

2.  Team Game

3.  Lost Property

My usual night-time visitor.  I will never stopped being amazed by the sheer volume of fathomless, trusting, unconditional love that pours forth from both Son 1 aged 4y 6m and Son 2 aged 19m.  Son 1 snuck in the bed in the dark, eyebrowed for England - unconscious and vigorous stroking of my eyebrows and eyelashes to relax himself and get back to sleep – and then burrowed round the bed after me, wherever I went.     At 0530 I tiptoed downstairs, starting on packed lunches, washing and morning snacks.  Son 1 followed after, clearly still exhausted, and I made him a bed form sofa cushions on the kitchen floor.   I had to wake Son 2 up at 0730, after I’d had my shower, after I’d done my make up. 

A fabulous morning. Son 1 was philosophical about going back to Nursery, which was also a good thing.  Got dressed, found himself a nursery toy, packed his bag, had a bit of snack.  All without protest. We got there in plenty of time, which was also a good thing. 

I had a sprint round town at lunchtime… changed the children’s library books, bought school shorts for Son 1 and did an M and S run.  It made me late leaving, so I rang Wonder Nanny to apologise and warn her I’d be late back with Son 1.  Then when I picked him up from the After School Club, his teaching assistant said “The Office rang. They say can you check the message on your mobile before you leave The Big Town.”  I would have checked the message on my mobile.  Only it was in my briefcase. Which I’d left in The Office. We had to go all the way back.  And we were very very late indeed for Son 2 and Wonder Nanny.  Son 2 stood in the bay window watching, smiling and waving as I walked up the street towards the house.

Perfect

1. Such A Perfect Day

2.  I’m Glad I Spent It With You

3. We Go Home

in July 2007, seven months pregnant, I gave up a walk I used to do twice a week… through The Town, past All The Different Coloured Houses Sitting By The Sea, and either up the Headland to the swimming pool, or over the hump to the Rockpool Beach.  The walk was a big part of life for me, the Big Pram, and Son 1, now aged 4y 6m.  Fat and knackered, I started driving. Son 2, now aged 19m arrived, and moved into the Big Pram.  And Son 1was always exhausted from his hyper-Mummy activities and could never walk further than about a mile without wanting to sleep.  Today, the sky blue, the sunshine bright, the water turquoise, we took a picnic, the beach suits, the swimming things, and the Big Pram, and went shopping for a Wet Suit for Son 1.   Before he’d gone 50 yards he was clinging to our neighbours’ railings refusing to move.  Too tired.  Needed a carry.  Wanted to go in The Pram.  Wanted to go home.  Couldn’t possibly make it all the way to the Discount Store.  He made it to the Discount Store, and we got him his wetsuit.  Then a Fab lolly, to be eaten behind The Pram, so Son 2 (nothing suitable for him on the Van) wouldn’t know.   Son 2 has excellent receptive language, tossed off his shoulder straps and levered himself round the big hood to lean back and check out what Son 1 was eating.   Two Mini milks, bought at the Spar shop near the Different Coloured Houses.   And then to the Rockpool Beach, which was covered in a thick layer of stinky seaweed. Who cares.  Son 1 did it. Walked all the way. We are Back. 

They were both exhausted after day upon day of trips out, so my plan was to spread out the mat, have our picnic, and then have a slow walk back again.  Nope.  Son 1 was straight in the sunsuit and off up the rocks.   Son 2, crying to get out of the Pram, was soon in his wetsuit swimming costume, sunsuit top and Legionnaire’s hat.   He scooped up sand and gravel and threw it in the sea. 10,000 times. Son played with a sandcastle someone left at the tideline, and then bounced back to play with Son 2.  Find a piece of seaweed and use it as a lasso, sending sand and flicky green muck over everything. I drank coffee from my flask while I stood over them.  Son 2 sat in the water, threw stones, patted it and splashed, laughing.   It was heavenly.  The water was greeny-blue, cormorants were diving a little way out from the shoreline, the sun was scorching hot.  Eventually, even in the blazing sunshine, Son 2 got cold.  We had lunch, the three of us sitting on our mat, Son 2 pestering mildly for Son 1’s Ben 10 drinks bottle, Son 1 drinking Son 2’s Frubes.  We sang “Someone to Care For.”  Son 2 threw sand in the bagels.

I got them dressed and loaded up the Pram.  It had been hard work hauling the Pram over sand made up of tiny stones… so on the way out I decided to pull it over the seaweed.  It was much easier over the seaweed lying on the beach… which was dry, yet on a flat surface.  But then I hit a great river of seaweed on rock.  No drainage.  Stinking, sludgey, slimey, each foot sinking 8  inches into bogwater with every step.  The Pram nearly capsized on a rock.  i heaved it up the concrete slope to the top of the cliff and tried to get the pondscum out from between my toes with a baby wipe.   Then I put on my Salvatore Ferragmo pumps (a relic from the Olden Days) for the walk back.  Son 1 did it, again. Not a complaint, not a suggestion that he should be carried.  Just strolled along playing Lightning McQueen, walk along the top of walls, goblins-in-jail with railings and chat to  Son 2 whenever he looked like having a doze.     But again, he did it.  Two and a half miles, with 2 hours’ play inbetween.  He was a amazing.  Both boys were a joy to be with today.  No stresses, no hurrying, just a very relaxing afternoon on the Beach. We left the house just before 11.. we didn’t get back till after 1630.  We only went out for a little shop and a picnic lunch…