This scene...

A scene like this must have been played out between a thousand mothers and their sons.  There is nothing new about dropping a child off for his first day at school. It is not extraordinary, just a simple rite of passage. Four of us climb the school steps and enter through glass double doors. I have Jack on my back, Oli at my heels and Max by the hand. We look up and down the corridor and see the locker room to our right.  There's a mild smell of disinfectant. Inside the room, we begin to look for Max's cubby hole. His name is not there. We keep looking. Perhaps there's been an oversight and he has been forgotten. All the names are empty, unknown; Rosie Tring, Victor Yung, they don't carry with them the heavy weight of Kindergarten revelations; that Rosie wins all the running races or Victor was bitten by a dog.  We do know one other boy and we are excited to find his locker.  And then, at last, we find Max's name. His cubby hole is against the wall on the furthest side.  He stashes his backpack and wordlessly we walk back down the corridor to the gym. That's where the noise is coming from, that's where the teacher stands with her clipboard.  We walk in and stand a moment a few feet inside, not yet part of this scene, but on the edge.  Max hangs on to my hand, pulling me down towards him.  I make enthusiastic exclamations about how great everything looks; the balls and hoops and hoppers and rackets.  I'm not really duping him, everything does look cool, but I wonder if he can tell that I'm not being totally authentic either, I'm willing him to fit in here, to find his feet.  The night before we had read the book, 'Follow the Line to School' where a solid black line on each page leads you through those double doors and into classrooms and playgrounds before leading you, at the end of the book, back home.  With slow, small footsteps Max begins to trace the blue lines on the floor that mark out the basketball court.  Oli copies him and I follow on behind.  I pretend to balance on a high wire.  Jack's weight makes it more than just pretense.  Someone rolls a hoop past us, sending it on it's wobbly course right across the gym.  We watch to see how far it will get before it coruscates to a sudden stop.  Max's movements are slow but his eyes dart around to take in the scene around him; the 'eek' of rubber soles on the polished floor, the raised stage at the far end, the stash of chairs in the corner, the older kids that already seem to know each other, the head teacher hovering in casual dress. We have crossed to the other side of the gym. Max's footsteps speed up, still a shuffle, but excited, faster movements that get him closer to that stack of hoops. He wants to try his luck and get his further than the other boy.
Oli wants a hoop now and I suddenly see that my problem might not be leaving Max, but extracting Oli. I act quickly and tell Max it's time for us to go.
'Let me give you an extra hug' he says.
And it is done. The first drop-off.
When I collect him at noon (a sweetener, this shorter day) he is more interested in getting his ball from under that stack of chairs than coming to greet me. I know it's a good sign. The teacher tells me there were a few tears and that she sat with him for a while to talk about things. He asked lots of questions about his class and how this new school worked. She said that helped. She said he was a good listener. In the car I don't press him for details but, in snatches by the end of the day, I find out that he was on the blue team, that Carl was on the white team and that Carl doesn't like white. I find out that he knocked down all the orange skittles and the man in the white shirt shouted 'Strike!' and asked him how he'd done that. That they played in the gym the whole time and that he might have played 'Simon Says' or might not.
We fill the afternoon with playing at home and in the garden.  It is one of our last summer holiday afternoons. I'd like you to believe that the boys played happily while I cooked them a wholesome supper.  But that's not entirely true. Yes they played, and yes, I bunged baked potatoes in the oven, but they picked on Jack a little, putting toys on his head and I got cross.  We'd all got up early, practicing the new routine for school, so everyone was tired by suppertime.
'If I live with a cross mummy, I'll be homeless.' Max said, insinuating, I suppose, that he'll be packing his bags if I'm annoyed when he tests me.
Bedtime arrives and not a moment too soon. Before I kiss Max good night, I want to acknowledge the day somehow, but I should know better.
'I love you.' I say.
He is in bed, looking intently at a sequence of Tintin's adventures in Destination Moon.
'What is he doing?' His finger is pressed on a picture of Snowy flying down the stairs in hot pursuit.
'He's chasing a cat.' I say. 'Dogs do that.' His finger traces across the page. 'Max, I want you to know I love you. You were brave today at school. I know that sometimes I'm cross because I need to get things done and because I want to protect you and I want to make sure you - and Oli and Jack - are safe.'
'Why is he falling?' Snowy has landed in a blizzard of stars at the bottom of the stairs.
'Its an accident. We don't see accidents coming.'
'But why did he fall? What is he doing?'
This time Max is pointing at Captain Haddock who has an illegal stash of whisky bottles and a stern looking customs official looking at him.
'We will have to read the book and find out.' I say, thinking, that soon school will soon give him that gift of reading and a new world will open up to him. And hoping, as we both head into something new, that the choices we have made are the right ones, that this is a school that will support him and that his curiosity will not be dented.

THREE!

For what feels like years, I've been having to remind myself that Oli is 'only two'. He follows his five year old brother around daring to believe he can do everything Max can do, and possibly better. 'And I are? And I are?' he'll say - as both question and declaration - hoping to put a dent in Max's claims to be the best at biking or running or digging in the dirt.  'And I are?'  And now he's 3 and about to get some mornings to himself at school.  Despite my earlier post about the three month eternity of the school holidays, this time of year feels packed with emotion.  The children are getting older, which means I'm getting older, and while I want one, I don't necessarily want the other.  And even as I want what is passing I need to say goodbye to it before it goes. A new daily landscape emerges as we settle in to new routes to new schools, and the inevitable need to get up even earlier in order to get places on time.  New interests seek to be accommodated while I suddenly mourn the loss of all those unstructured days of pajama breakfasts, mega constructions and impromptu walks in search of sticks and puddles. My parenting has to shift around a bit to feel comfortable with the new age groups in the family and the different interactions.  Taking on (even small) responsibilities at the children's schools feels like a weighty commitment.  Was there really a time, five years ago, in the days when I had just one infant to care for, when I would take a lunchtime nap? The very concept feels extraordinary.

So in celebration of things moving on a little, Oli turned three and he had some friends round to acknowledge the fact. We slung bunting up around the garden and he ate large quantities of a cake designed to look like an airport runway.  And once the party was over and three of the four beds upstairs contained slow-breathing boys, I snuck a look at some bad quality recordings of me, taken in the middle of last year, where I am trying to get Oli to say 'dotta bridge'. And I said goodbye to that little boy so that we can welcome what comes with the three year old version.

Time goes by...

I've been trying to think about why it is, that it's so easy to forget your own children as they were at six months old. I can barely remember Max or Oli being the age at which Jack is now.  I suppose it's such a tiny fraction of their lives (and mine), that that's why it gets swallowed up in the abyss of forgotten things.  After all, children are toddlers for a year, but only a week old for a day. Blink, and they are 2 weeks, then a month.  Perhaps it is also because you can't remember how you didn't know this child like you do now.
It feels as if, first there is the rainstorm. It is what it is, and you deal the way you do, and then a stream appears. The water's moving quickly and yet you feel like nothing will ever change. You will always be here, watching this kind of water, on this kind of river bank, always able to step across the stream.  And then the water level rises and every day the picture of your child, the character, becomes a little fuller.  You know the eczema on his thumb and the milk spots under his chin. You know the smell of formula on his breath and how his eyelashes have grown. You know how he smiles for his brothers and looks at you to be reassured. He loves his bath, you find out, and you notice how his feet are the length of your thumb. You know how he pulls his socks off and sucks them and looks amused and startled when he rolls himself over, and how he marvels at his hands and smiling, grips your hair when you lean in to his cot. You know how he slips to one side in his high chair, and how he'd be nursing forever if he could.  You know the feeling of his cold fingers and sharp nails on your chest, and how he'll sleep in broad daylight, tolerating the fact that you haven't found the time to put up curtains in his room.
I begin to piece the jigsaw of this boy together, pulling genes from here and there; the dimples, the turn of his mouth and the curve of his nose. And each day the water runs quicker and the river gets wider. Not so easy to step across. And sure enough he's a month older and I swore I'd never imagined I'd be weaning him. But here it is and I look back and can barely remember that first rainstorm, when I couldn't see for the drizzle and the fog.  Jack's head gets heavier and his eyes brighten and he chuckles and smiles and seeks me out and when his brothers maul him, his look asks me, 'has this been authorized?'  I so want to look and look at Jack and live his every moment, to say 'bouncing butterball' to him and watch him giggle, mouth wide, at the breath-pumping consonants. But it isn't just about observation. I am part of the landscape, I'm changing too and in this place there are two more rivers - moving so fast and yet changing ever so gradually - and so much to discover.

A weekend away

I've just come back from a weekend away. The night before I left, the friend who invited me on this indulgently idle trip, free from the responsibilities of motherhood, called me to make arrangements. Upstairs, Max and Oli were meant to be asleep. So, she'd be at my house in the city by four, to hand her kids over to her husband, Dom would be home to take charge of ours and we'd take her husband's car down south.  It was all arranged.  I don't remember exactly what I said, but no doubt I was enthusiastic. The last time I had a day without washing up or wiping bottoms was when I was in labour. 
I put the phone down,  and a minute later I heard sobbing from the stairs. Someone small, eves dropping.
'What's the matter?' I ask gently. I can only see orange tractor pajamas and some arms hugging a pair of knees. I walk over to the bottom of the stairs and see Max, his head leaning on the railings.
'Why do you want to leave us?' he sobs. Well how's that for guilt?
'Here, let me give you a hug' I said, 'so that if you miss me while I'm away you can think of it and I'll be right here.' 'But why are you going?' I navigated delicately through the reason. My friend was due to have her third child and she was going to have some rest at her parents house before the baby arrived. I was going along for the rest too. It wasn't that I desperately wanted to go, but that she'd asked me and I thought she'd appreciate it. The last bit wasn't entirely true. She'd have had to scrape me off the bonnet if she decided to go without me.
'I'm only going for a night.' I said. 'Well, two.' I added.
At this point, Oli - who had been pacing around on the landing - suddenly said he needed to 'Pee In Loo...Pee In Loo.' The urgency of it put an end to Max's line of questioning, and I was back to wiping bottoms, not a pee after all.
Saturday morning. I wake at 6.45am even though there's no-one small trying to get into my bed.  And it turns out that although it is not very easy to lie in when you are in the absence of your children, it is very easy to idle away a morning.  Soon after 8am I picked up a message from home. Dom's voice first, telling Max, 'You can leave a message. The answer machine's on' then a muffled exchange of the phone followed by a voice saying, 'Hello. This is Max. Why...why, won't you speak? I mean it's infuriating. I don't know what you are doing. Are you having a lie-in or something?'
Mid morning we decided to have lunch and a manicure at the local spa. It will probably be the only time I ever get into a white robe to have my nails polished. But when in California... And of course, we had to seek out the oxygen room but with disappointing results, and my mum has since told me there's an oxygen room just off the A30 in Sticker so, not-so-Californ-I-A after all.
I accepted the offer of a warm neck pillow for the duration of the manicure. I don't think that offer will come round again in the next few years...and I had a nice chat to Nicole, the beautician.  I was telling her that my pregnant friend and I were here to get some relaxation in before mayhem arrived. I was speaking from experience.
'Mayhem - that's a pretty name.' she said.  I have to admit, it has a ring to it.

7 weeks, 3 boys, 1 woman in need of sleep

I began this blog just over two years ago.  It really started as a simple way to capture some of the adventures in parenting that I was sure to forget.  How rapidly one stage slips into another and within weeks you can barely recall that once you could balance your child on your forearm, cup his head in your hand.

But the past seven weeks have been harder than I imagined.  It has given me neither a moment to post anything nor the desire to capture much of it.  Don't get me wrong. Jack has peachy cheeks and I love him despite the crying, but he does a fair amount of the latter and it doesn't do much for the nerves. Jack's arrival coincided with Max developing a rash that the doctors thought might be chicken pox. For 24 hours we tried a crazy kind of quarantine that would have been totally ineffective if it had been necessary. We were lucky, then, that Max actually had a poison ivy rash.  The quarantine was lifted but the sleep deprivation set in and when there are two other children demanding your time and energy, it takes you to new and strange lands.  For one, it sends your anxiety levels through the roof.  It also rubs away at your patience. Let's just say, the past few weeks have not had me demonstrating motherhood at it's best.  Throw in breastfeeding worries, worries galore, a bout of mastitis, trying to buy a house, kindergarten tours with or without a babe in a sling, kindergarten application forms and interviews (so, tell me, what do you see as your child's particular strengths, talents, and weaknesses?) and Jack's vocal gymnastics and I can't say I'm having much fun.

I realise all these things are a mere inconvenience when you consider there are parents keeping vigil in the pediatric ICU.  I know I am lucky.  And knowing that, makes me try to focus on what I really do want to remember; like the rare and fleeting smile Jack gave me from his cot the other morning, or the way Oli likes to hold Jack's hand while he sucks his thumb, as if Jack is his very own raggy.

Closing in...

I am cooked. I equate it to that feeling on a long haul flight (with a toddler or 2) when you feel so rough and tired and rotten that you think, just let this stop or more precisely, if this hunk of metal goes down, I’m OK with it. My point is, I'm ready to be unpregnant. 
I'm both excited and nervous to meet the shifting aquatic creature who has been residing in my tummy these past months.  I cautiously imagined the little blastocyst at just six weeks, and by eight weeks I was living with the taste of metal in my mouth, salivating if I hadn't had carbohydrates within the hour. Everything made me nauseous; the sight of my maternity clothes, the touch of wool, the hum of the refrigerator, the aisles of food in the supermarket, the faint smell of gas from the cooker.  
We found out early we would be having our third boy, that I would be a mother of sons. I brushed off comments from those who said 'Bad luck!' as if a daughter was the trophy and another boy, the booby prize. But it hurt that I didn't have their support. And perhaps it hurt too, because if I looked at myself squarely, I realised there was a raw nerve there. I would never have a daughter.  Of course, I love my boys. It wasn't that I'd never shop for marshmallow hues in the clothes aisles at Old Navy, but I suppose as a woman, I felt I'd learned a thing or two and although I'm no teacher, I wanted to pass it on.  I was ready to champion her career choices as an equal to my sons, I was ready to make sure she grew up with as much confidence too.
I thought about my own role as a daughter and rightly or wrongly sensed I may have provided more family cohesion over the years.  It made me wonder about the shape of my own testosterone-infused family in the future. Such musings are dangerous though. Who knows what this little boy inside me will be like?  All I know about him are movements I cannot fathom. I cannot tell an elbow from a heel as his shape twists and turns inside me.  I know I must get on with being the best parent to my sons, rather than a mother to a younger self or a girl I will never meet.  
And there it is again, a tightness, a twitch, a strange twinge, an awkward pressure. My whole body is engorged. I pull Dom's hand across my stomach. This is the last time we will feel these jelly movements coming from within my swollen tummy.  Each time, the movements shock him, make him shudder even. So far along and yet still how strange pregnancy can feel.

Sex Education Part I

Max has been asking me recently about how he 'got into mummy's tummy'.
'Good question' I say.  I have read somewhere that this is a perfect stalling tactic when you get the hard ones. And it's true, it gives the mental cogs just enough time to get going and create a diversion.
I pause. 'That really is a good question...but it's quite complicated and I'll need a pen and paper to help with the explanation.'
Each time the subject has been raised I've been relieved that we're in the car or in the garden or out for a walk, no paper or pens in sight. Then yesterday, quite forgetting my promise, I suggested we do some colouring and out came the crayons and pencils.
'Now...' said Max and I immediately saw where he had got me. Drawing equipment was sprawled about the table.
'Lets do how-Max-got-into-mummy's-tummy'.'
We glossed over the nitty gritty, he is only three, and talked about how mummies have eggs inside them which presumably left him thinking we women are some kind of relative to a chicken.  There followed a balloon-like pencil drawing of me; lungs, heart, diaphragm, stomach, intestines; that was about as much biology as I could fit in (and remember) and still leave enough space for a womb with Max inside.
He was delighted with the mini balloon-shaped little boy floating around in there but wondered if it was very dark inside, to which I replied, yes it was.
'Why is it so dark?' 'No windows' I say.
'How long was I in there?' Max's face looks serious. 'Quite a long time' I answer.
'How long?' he asks again, and then, 'why do I have to get so old in there?'  I loved this, 'so old'.
I tried another picture of dividing cells that started sprouting legs and arms. My artwork didn't look very convincing but I was quite enjoying the excercise. A few minutes later Dom came and sat next to us.  Max obviously had a nagging concern that he had been wasting precious time in utero.
'But why so long?'
'You can't drive a new car...' Dom said and paused to look at me. My frown showed some concern that my biology lesson was being consumed by exhaust fumes but Dom's eyes said 'trust me'.
'You can't drive a new car out of the garage until all the parts are inside; the engine, the seats, the radio...'
That was all he said and with that Max trotted happily off to make a garage out of lego.  Car analogies are obviously the way forward.

A full ten minutes of silence..

The wonders of an elastic band ball!

Gotcha!

They know how to get you, these kids, don't they?
Here's how it went in the park earlier; Max was playing in the red and yellow train by the sandpit, steering wildly. It's attached to the tarmac so his passengers were oblivious, but it had the manic energy of a child who's just been given the Two Minute Warning. The all-powerful Two Minute Warning. More recently known as, the all-but-ignored Two Minute Warning. I admit that my 'Two Minutes' have a tendency to expand and contract like gutters in the sunshine, but I try my best. I tell him so. I also tell him that if he doesn't come with Oli and I 'right now' there will be no music in the car on the way home. A harsh punishment. Finally, and after Max does one last circuitous lap of the playground via the spider-web climbing frame, the three of us are are on our way, down the hill, heading back to the car. But when we get there, and are eventually strapped in, there is no music. I have to do it. The result is big wet rolling tears and wails that are only just comprehensible. The aim here, of course, is that I relent and switch the 'MUSIC ON!' But I've learnt to be quiet in moments like this. My silence makes the words I do hear, that much more heart-wrenching;
'I just want to be happy!'
'I just want to be glad of you.'
I infer that he just wants to love me but I make it so hard for him. Ouch.
Later, washing his hands for supper proves an almighty task. The diggers outside are moving and must be watched. Peace signs are shown to the 'digger mans'. I loose my patience and start counting. 1, 2, 3,
'I'm trying my best' Max says.
'Where's he picking this up?' I think.
On the way up to bed he gives me a totally impromptu kiss.
'I like you Mummy, no actually I love you' he says.
And there it is, he's got me.

One of those weeks...

It's Friday night and it's been one of those weeks. Right now I'm trying to hold on to those moments when I've been forced to scoop a boy up in my arms and slap a big kiss on his cheek. I'm trying to enlarge the sweet moments so they aren't swallowed by the sour.
Oli deciding a 40 minute nap is plenty long enough thanks very much and crying from his cot, wide mouthed and sad, red faced and furious, just when I'm trying to juggle saucepans in the middle of a major cook-up. Then, me reminding myself how very small he still is, how he is soothed by having my little finger in his mouth or likes me to put my head so close to his that we almost share a breath, his little hand outstretched to explore the marvel of my eyelashes.
The week feels dominated by the morning spent with both boys at the DMV, yet another attempt to renew my driver's license. The whole thing was an exercise in observation and patience. One woman was breathing through the sleeve of her sweater, so as not to inhale germs I suppose. It seemed extreme but, along with the armed security guard, it reminded me it was hardly a place for children.
'What is he dooing?' Max asked as we sat down next to a man who must have had the body mass of the three of us combined.
'Well, he's looking at his phone and waiting for his number to be called.'
'Is he waiting for his number to be called?' Max is on his knees, bending over the back of the chair and looking at the man behind us. I nod. 'Is he waiting for his number to be called? And is he waiting for his number to be called?' He's pointing at a woman this time but I nod again. There must be 50 people, at least, and I can sense he likes this question.
'Everyone is waiting for their number, Max'
He moves on to the signage. 'No Visitors', 'Examination Area', 'Window Number 1'. We count to 25 as the tannoy calls out ticket numbers; F074, H007, G103. The sequence is so random I'm reminded of those unfathomable maths questions that ask you to write down the next number after 8, 21, 306, 24... An hour later Max is using the rope cordon as a gym bar. Security's getting heavier around us and we all want out. The meltdown happens later in the playground when Max wants to come down the fireman's pole.
'I-CAN-DO-IT-ALL-BY-MY-OWN' he tells me firmly.
There is a pause. Then, 'I-CAN-DO-IT-ALL-BY-MY-OWN-IF-YOU-HELP-ME.'
I had to kiss him for that, but it didn't avert the tears.
Then today, Max looked so excited running through the folds of multicoloured parachute silk at his gym class. And when he heard the lyrics in 'Hey there Delilah' which went 'planes and trains and cars', it stopped him in his tracks. He was grinning 'Did he just say 'planes and trains and cars?' And Oli, so adorable in the carrier on my chest, chunky, soft and sleepy, tiny nose, mouth slightly open. I hold on to those moments when I remember the three of us in the public loo, me bent over Max, asking him to please, just pee, and my sunglasses falling in the bowl. Yes, very funny...now.

These are the best days...

When I was working for a film producer all those years ago, we were trying to develop a script with a hot new writer about the life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. For all the heat around the author, the script wasn't actually very compelling and the director, who had once been famous for doing the music videos for the Sex Pistols, was seen as a liability, the ski-boot on the ballerina. I must have read and re-read a dozen drafts of the movie. It did finally get made but I had moved on by then and I only found out about it on the internet. But there was one line in that film which really resonated with me, I don't even know if it ended up in the final dialogue but it was when Coleridge and his wife, Sara, were living in rural Nether Stowey. It's snowing one night, Coleridge has been writing in a frenzy, working on the Ancient Mariner in an opium induced delirium and Sara has just had a baby. Now I think about it, having a writer, philes of opium and a newborn in the same house must have been utter hell but despite all this Sara is looking up at the stars one winter night, cradling her baby in her arms and saying to Coleridge, something like 'these are the best days' (perhaps it was a little more prosaic than that, but the gist is there.) There's no money, the house is freezing, Coleridge hasn't written anything of note, he's an opium addict, they're probably not getting much sleep. Coleridge tells her it's not true, there will be better days to come but she doesn't listen and repeats the line again. The words, or the gist of the words, came back to me soon after Max was born. Granted, we were living in a place with panoramic views of the San Francisco bay, not a hovel in Nether Stowey, but we were miles from family and had wrenched ourselves from our friends just when we most needed them. When we paced the dark flat at night trying to sooth our crying newborn we looked out on a moonlit bay and even though we couldn't believe our luck, it was also horribly lonely. But I felt the same thing holding Oli in the garden the other day, as he stared up at the blue sky and the blossom breaking out on the thorntree. 'These are the best days.' It must be something about having a baby or a child in the house. Photos of my own infancy pop into my mind, my mum in a big print sundress holding either me or my brother in her arms, squinting against the sunshine at the camera. Or the one where she's in a green toweling bikini on all fours with my brother emptying the contents of a watering can onto her back. I was having that 'best days' feeling as I put Max to bed last night. We'd spent the day in the sunshine, some of us digging dirt, running in and out of the paddling pool, eating ice pops. I told him I loved him, that he was great, an inspiration. He was thinking exactly what you are.
He lay there for a second or two, then put his fingers up his nose.
'Bogey' he said.

You should control your kids.

That comment is still eating at me. We were at the airport, just off a five hour flight, waiting for our baggage at the carousel. Everyone was tired. Oli was swinging his legs in the stroller, red eyed and hungry. Kristi was trying to entertain him with a plastic spoon. I was getting a bottle for him. Dom was at the luggage rail, waiting for the conveyor belt to start moving. Like all the other passengers we had our empty trolley parked up, hoping to be the first ones to put it to use. Very few, or more precisely, no-one, was sharing Max's excitement for the baggage reclaim area; the strange noises, the flashing lights, the carousel's clunky engineering, the trolley wheels. Max was enthusiastic, but he wasn't out of control. I admit, Max was in my peripheral vision, but here's what happened: Our excited 2 year old climbed onto the front of our trolley. Our trolley. He wasn't pushing it, he was actually just trying to sit down on it. As he climbed up, it moved. It moved about 6 inches and knocked a man's shin. I heard a sniper-like 'Fuck, you should control your kids.' The man wasn't actually addressing me, just swearing in my direction. I was too tired to deal with aggression, so I ignored him. He limped around for a while, occasionally massaging his shin, sucking in air and swearing under his breath. I made a kind of 'whoops' face to myself and told Max to stay near me and not sit on the trolley. The man's wife was standing next to us. She didn't say anything or look in my direction. I glanced over at Kristi and we exchanged a look that said 'that-couldn't-have-hurt'. I reassure myself that you can't get much speed up on an airport trolley in 6 inches. The man's bags come through and the couple move off. I assume that's the end of it. A good five minutes later we too have our bags and we head for the elevator. That's when the man ambushes us.
'You should control your kids.' he says again.
He's blocking our path, not shouting but jutting his chin out and frowning like he wants to start a fight. I'm holding Max's hand tight. Kristi is pushing Oli's stroller. Dom puts his hand across me as if we are bracing for impact in a car crash. Dom hasn't got a clue what the man's talking about or why he's starting with us. He was battling suitcases while all the shin-knocking was taking place.
'He pushed a trolley right into my fucking leg. I've got an ACL.' His voice is rising.
All I was thinking was, 'what's an ACL? Did he say ACL? ACM? ATM? How was anyone to know he had one in his leg.' Dom, incredibly, knows all about ACLs, the knee's anterior cruciate ligament. He's also got a quicker tongue than me and tells the man to mind his language in front of a 2 year old.
'Mind my fucking language? She didn't even fucking apologise.' He's indicating me.
At this point I start walking, Max in tow. I can see a sign for the elevator.
Dom has the trolley loaded up with 4 bags, a car seat and a cot and is probably thinking it inconceivable that it could be pushed at all, let alone with any precision into this man's leg.
'Go away.' Dom says.
To which, amazingly, this man shouts 'WHAT did you just say to me?' As if he's just been threatened with an expletive-loaded insult.
'I said go away and leave my family alone.'
With a bit of rocking back and forth, Dom finally gets the trolley going and he catches me up and rounds into the elevator. With Kristi and Oli quick behind, we press any and all the buttons to try and get away from the scene we just experienced. Perhaps the man had a point, but he blew it when he started swearing at us. I should have said as much - why do we always think of the wise cracks too late? Way to late. We were leaving the long-term parking lot before I managed to put my mind to the biting words I needed. Cue one of my favourite quotes: 'Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms round the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage.' Let's just say if it happens again, I might, by then, have come up with the right response.

Dashed promises

It seems I write something down - and then go straight ahead and betray my good intentions. A month ago I wrote that I wasn't eating another slice of cake or a biscuit or anything bad until I'd shed an inch of baby fat. But give the girl a weekend (or just a night) in an RV and within hours I was cooking and eating banana bread as if I was both chef and taster on a bakery production line. Then I made a yoga mat bag and vowed a lifetime's commitment to Bikram. So, have I stepped foot in that 105 degree studio since? Hell no! Next I say I'll write this blog more often and can I think of anything to tell you? It's raining. I'm uninspired, OK?
I'm trying to think whether or not I've been breaking promises to Max. We did go to the Discovery Museum yesterday, we have had picnic lunches all this week (admittedly on the kitchen floor rather than in the garden but that's down to the rain which I made no promises on). I have a feeling though that if asked, Max might tell you a different story - and it would probably involve the Wonderpets DBD. But I've been totally honest with him - he got his mitts on it and it's scratched. That's why his favourite hedgehog episode skips from start to finish in about 4 seconds. I'm sure he thinks it's my own form of DBD witchcraft. So I can let him have the Wonderpets, just not that episode. I try cleaning it and he rushes over to look. 'Has it got mitts on it?' he asks sadly. I confirm the diagnosis. I think that's how I got myself into the promise about going to the Discovery Museum. I usually love the place but as mentioned I'm feeling uninspired and when it's raining, it's usually teeming with weather-despairing parents and their pent up offspring. And it wasn't our best trip - sharing at the train table is always a little problematic and this time Max got territorial about the crabs in the crab net too. But an older kid came along and there was an interlude where they played nicely on the fishing boat together. Inexplicably to most (although I don't think anyone but Max and his friend could hear) I imitated the shipping forecast over the ship's radio - Dogger, Fisher. North East 4. 1002 Rising Slowly. Forties, Cromarty, Rain then showers, Moderate to Good. Other than that, most of the exhibits Max likes are outside and it was pouring with rain. To top it off we found ourselves trapped in the outside loos in a hail storm. We were the only ones in there. I opened the door to reassure Max about the noise. 'The good thing about hail storms...' I said, without really knowing where my sentence was going '...is that they are very short.' And luckily I wasn't too far wrong. It was the biggest hail I've seen - the size of my finger nails. 'Can we feed it to the penguins?' Max asked. I wasn't sure what he was talking about but there was a statue of a seal, so we fed some to him instead. The whole feeding thing got Max thinking about his own tummy. 'Can I have some snacks, Mummy?' Here was my ticket out. 'Banana bread?' I offered 'We have lots of that at home - Lets go!'

Rain

I took this photo at the weekend and it sums up the weather we're having at the moment. Wet. The rain has challenged all my creative parenting. We've been throwing ping pong balls into yogurt pots. I wrote forfeits on the bottom of the pots, things like Jump On One Foot and Pretend to Ride A Horse (not at the same time). I also wrote Give Mummy A Hug (on several pots). Well, there's got to be something in it for me. Forfeits were strictly enforced. This game lasted about five minutes. We attempted a version of Twister (without the alcohol, sadly, and in fact, without even the game, we just drew coloured circles on a large piece of newspaper and I helped Max tie himself in knots). We've tried cooking (banana bread) and we ended up with eggs on the floor, we've tried eating what we cooked (and done that admirably), we've done colouring and trains and play doh and stickers. We've made enough Christmas wrapping paper to keep us going til 2012. Max did whining and snacking and upsetting his brother. We got the camera out and Max did 'I can be gentle with Oli' poses. Oli smiled and did 'I'm 6 months old and don't even have to try to be adorable' poses. And of course, we've done DVDs; Mary Poppins, The Wonderpets, oh, and Mary Poppins again. I tried briefly to kick Mary Poppins to touch by producing Dom and my wedding video (it's only 12 minutes long, I wouldn't be that unkind). Max was transfixed the entire time - Is that Daddy? Is that Grandpa? It's Granny! That I went completely unrecognised, I put down to the fact I was wearing a veil, but frankly it's years (if ever) that I've looked as elegant as I felt that day. I was getting all teary at the end...Dom and I dancing close, slo-mo, fade to white when Max looked over at me and cut to the chase; 'Is it finished Mummy? Can I watch Mary Poppins.' How could I refuse? It was raining after all and I was forced to rewind the bit where the merry-go-round horses dunk a fox hunting horseman underwater - not at Max's insistence but because I just wanted to hear his infectious giggling one more time...

Swingin' sitter

We have a new babysitter. She hangs out in the garden and is made of robust red parachute silk. Yes, it is spring-like enough in San Francisco to put up the hammock. And if you so much as mention that you might just go and sit in it, Max will be tripping over himself right at your heels and clambering into the thing before you. That's generally what I have in mind when I announce I'm going to lie in the hammock, so it's mission accomplished, and I can get back to the kitchen to empty the dishwasher (again!) without Max getting his sticky fingers on the cutlery before me. Usually it's only a five minute babysitting session and since Max insists on climbing in and out 'all by my self' it's not long before he is back in the kitchen - covering Oli in nose-rubbing love. 'Oli's just sleeping' I'll say steering the stroller somewhere a little quieter but I know it sounds like I'm pleading, and Max knows that too and tells me; 'No, he's just waking up.' Of course, by then Max is usually right. In fact Max thinks he knows exactly what Oli's preferences are: 'Oli doesn't like his bib on' I hear as I turn round to find Max yanking it off him, dribbled puree spilling on the floor. Or 'He wants to take his hat off' Max will say, plucking it off like he's pulling up a carrot. Oli obligingly smiles at everything Max does - so perhaps Max does know best - but I haven't yet seen him insist that Oli wants a turn in the hammock...and I'm sure he'd love it!

What we do today?

Max, Oli and I were just leaving the library last week and I was thinking about what I could cobble together from the fridge to give Max for supper when I remembered I'd left a potato boiling away for, I checked my watch, nearly 2 hours... Envisioning San Francisco's trusty fire service lined up outside our house, lights flashing, I realised we would have to hurtle back to Pine Street to do some damage limitation. Getting Max to walk in one direction without being distracted is a challenge at the best of times, but the right direction? and at speed? Forget it. My only recourse was to pick him up, all 30+lbs of him. So, pushing Oli in his stroller and holding Max on my hip I started my gallop home. We were doing quite well until Max, thinking this was great fun, leant down to the handle bars of the stroller to 'help' me push. So now Max is horizontal and I have my arm around his waist still pushing the buggy. Max and Oli are virtually rubbing noses, and Max is grinning, loving this unexpected game. Oli is looking a bit startled. He has good reason. Two blocks to go and we come to grief in a jumble of bruised knees and grazed knuckles, and the stroller is resting on 2 wheels and the handle bars. Oli, thank God, is strapped in and looks like a little parachutist, only it's a stroller rather than a billow of silk behind him. When we finally limp into the house the saucepan is browning a little but there are no flames and no firefighters. Max is very disappointed at the lack of 'Fy engines'. So much for the high drama! I need a stiff drink but instead, feeling a little shaken and wearing Thomas the Tank Engine plasters on my fingers, I settle down to read Max his library bounty, 'Fix-it Duck'.
I love our local library. The childrens' section has magnetic letters you can stick to the wall, a little puppet theatre, wall charts with strings to pull, and of course books galore. The only problem for me, is that the kids' area is at the far end of the building away from any of the interesting literature. Max will not be dragged away from the magnetic letters ('Letters are make words, Mummy') so I'm stuck looking at the junior reads or the parenting books. For that reason, my library bounty from last week was 'Be A Parent, Not A Pushover', which I think tells you something of the forthright nature of my eldest son. However, when I finally get to take a look at the book, I see that it's 'A guide to raising happy, emotionally healthy teens'. We are a decade away from the teen years but for lack of other reading material I'm now a hundred pages in and wow, do we have some fun ahead of us! With chapters focussing on anger and negotiation, discipline and communication it seems that stage is going to require double the energy I have now. I've just got to a bit about family rituals, important because they are all about 'how we relate to one another, how we change, heal, and celebrate.' It got me thinking about the rituals we had when I was growing up and the one that stands out was 'The 3 Ws'. This was not a forefunner of the www. you see at the top of your screen. It stood for Wet Windy Walk and was most often greeted with a groan. I can feel the rain stinging my face just thinking about it. It sums up my family's commitment to the outdoors come rain or shine and a belief that a good blustery walk can cure most ills.
As for the rituals we have in our embryonic family, I hope boiling potatoes dry is not one of them (I have to admit, it's not the first time it's happened). Being in sunny California means the wet and windy part of The Three Ws doesn't happen very often. I'm sure we'll develop our own rituals over the years. One habit we've got into with Max is recapping on the day at bedtime. 'What we do today?' he will chirp from his bed - yet another delaying tactic as we approach lights-out. But it is therapeutic for me too...if there's been some 'Naughty Step' action, we can put that to bed too, but at the same time say all the fun things we did. Sometimes I don't recognise having done the things Max talks about but I suppose it all comes down to interpretation. This evening he said, 'Mummy was dancing'. I couldn't think at first but then remembered jigging Oli around in the stroller in the kitchen to Johnny Cash. And the day I lacerated my hand, endangering my children to try and save my burning home was simply, 'There were no Fy engines'.

Wave Hello to Thomas!

To Max's utter delight, the Thomas DBD has entered our home. ('DBD' sounds so sweet it seems a shame to correct him, that also goes for numana (banana), grabble (gravel) and washing macheem) For Max, everything about the Thomas DBD is exciting. First there's the box, one of which actually sings out Thomas tunes. But even the ones that don't sing are spoken of with breathless joy: 'Look Daddy, who's that? It's Thomas! Thomas says 'peep peep'.' And the narration doesn't stop there...each episode begins with Thomas' arrival at Knapford Station: 'Who's that Mummy? It's Thomas! Is he going to stop?' (pause) 'He stopped, Mummy, he stopped!' Then there's the title shot where a boy with a bike looks down on the track from a bridge: 'It's the boy with the bike, Mummy. And there's a shed, Mummy'. And even though he has now watched most of the episodes at least 3 or 4 times, especially when we lost the remote and could only watch the first couple of episodes over and over again, he still looks at me as the story nears it's climax and gasps; 'What's going to happen, Mummy?' And before you know it, it's the credits - for Max another moment of awe: 'Look at the letters Mummy! Look at the letters....Letters are make words!' Of course, I'm swollen up with pride that he can identify that 'T' is for 'Thomas' (Ok, ok, I'm ignoring the fact that 'H' is also apparently for 'Thomas') But to tell the truth Thomas is doing my head in. We have the little figures, the track, the books, the backpack and now these endless dramatizations with their theme songs, jingles and Thomas going 'peep peep' and his endless quest to be a Really Useful Engine. The DBD normally goes on while I am washing Oliver in a bathtub on the kitchen table, conveniently keeping Max in one place while my hands are otherwise occupied. Sometimes I tell Max he can watch the DBD 'when Daddy gets home' which means Daddy is greeted with double the normal enthusiasm and a few minutes later I'll see my boys unwinding to 'Percy and the Signal' or 'Duck Takes Charge'. Somehow the DBD at the end of the day is like those TV screens at motorway service stations or sports bars, however much you try and turn away, your eyes are inevitably drawn towards them, like moths to the flame. Dom may be looking at his blackberry or opening some post while Diesel shunts the Troublesome Trucks but the episodes are still permeating his every pore. Earlier Dom had emptied the dishwasher for the 15th time, taken in the laundry from the clothes horse outside, given Max a bath and put him to bed with yet another story about Thomas being a Really Useful Engine. He leaned in for a kiss when we were finally downstairs together and said 'Haven't I been a Really Useful Husband?' I, being the Fat Controller, could confirm that indeed he had.