Every day, we park around the corner from the school. The boys tumble out of the car and say, “Can I run?” and then hare off up the road. I remember vaguely, the joy of running quickly, of feeling your feet flying over the ground almost like bouncing on air. I wonder, when does that go away?
Boys
O Frabjous Day!
Michael can finally read properly. He and Daniel spent the evening reading and then swapping comics. Oh the blissful peace.
We’re Alive!
During dinner this evening, the carbon monoxide alarm went off for the first time ever. It’s very loud. My ears are still ringing. As Mr. Waffle wrestled with it, Michael kept posing questions through the ringing and things became a little tetchy. The alarm instructions (which, yes, we had to hand, OCD and its many uses) advised that we go outside and leave all the windows and doors open while we called the emergency services. We might well have done that had it been summer and not quite so rainy. Instead we stayed indoors, put the children to bed and later consulted the internet.
You will be relieved to hear that we’ve turned off all gas appliances (last serviced in October for heaven’s sake) and are sitting in the cold. Having re-checked with our original alarm and the spare (your point? it was sitting waiting in its packaging for this moment), all seems to be well now. However, a man will have to be summoned before we can put on the gas fired central heating, the cooker or the gas fire. Alas. I will be retiring to bed early with a hot water bottle.
Mr. Waffle (installer of the carbon monoxide alarms) is mildly triumphant. But he doesn’t feel the cold. Still, if you have gas appliances, I should, I suppose, take this opportunity to suggest that you invest in a carbon monoxide alarm.
We Who Are Old, Old and Grey
I was reading “The Giant Jam Sandwich” to the boys the other night. “Look,” I said, “it was first published in 1972 when I was only three.” “Oh,” said Michael, “it was published during the second World War then.”
Open to Misinterpretation
The boys are sick and living from Calpol dose to Calpol dose.
Unfortunately, Michael hasn’t got the name quite right. Lying wanly on the sofa this evening, he looked up at me and said, “Is it time for my alcohol yet?”
Fallen Angels
I do sometimes worry about the number of different women who have been involved in minding our children over the years. Michael never really bothers to get to grips with their names but always calls the current incumbent, “the babysitter” despite parental protests.
Over Christmas he accidentally knocked off the wall a picture in his room which features nine women’s heads – details from well-known larger pictures – like the Madonna of the Rocks, the Girl with the Pearl Earring, the Lady with an Ermine.
He conveyed the news of this catastrophe to me as follows: “Mummy, I’m very sorry but I knocked down the picture with the photos of all the old babysitters on it.”
