Overreaching ambition

Some heady combination of half term and a wistful look in Stephen's eyes made me think it would be a really good idea to take two toddlers into London on the train to meet Daddy for lunch.

And it was. 

They were unbelievably, unutterably and gorgeously good company. They chatted to Stephen about the train. They ate all their lunch and said please and thank you to the waitresses without being asked. They sat beautifully in the taxi afterwards and cheered when the driver told them that he'd seen the Queen waving at them from Buckingham Palace. Even when the train home was so packed that they both had to sit on the floor surrounded by other people's bad-tempered knees, they just sat looking tired but making no fuss at all.

Who are these angels and what have they done with my children?

The Twilight Phenomenon

I gave in and read the book. Whilst not enriching my life, it has at least left me thankful that I am neither a teenage girl nor a Mormon trying to make celibacy sound like an attractive prospect. I mean, falling in love, marrying, having two children and then forgetting you ever had a brain might be tough at times, but surely it's preferable to falling in love with someone who's going to kill you the minute you surrender to the mutual attraction?
I'm told she has a baby in the fourth book but I'm not sure I can stand all these teenage hormones seeping through the pages for that long. At least Toby and Beatrice's crumbs can be hoovered up with reasonable ease. Although, it has to be said, with a great deal less romance. What IS it about vampires?

Marital harmony

Toby, Beatrice and I were waiting for Stephen to get up so that we could all have breakfast together. I thought we'd get ahead on Toby's project. I went through the papers and cut out cakes. I drew cake outlines and provided an array of glitter, stars, coloured pencils and tissue paper. I told Toby he could use the big scissors and have sole control of the Pritt stick. When Stephen came down and asked what we were doing, I felt a stirring of respect for the Early Years Curriculum ('Because Dads are important too!!!') I explained that we were coming up with preliminary templates for Toby's ultimate fairy cake design, which we would then recreate in sugar, food colouring and edible sprinkles.

Stephen and I got busy cutting, sticking and colouring. Stephen came up with the idea of edging a red cake in white triangles to look like an open dinosaur mouth; I worked on a more traditional floral concept. I explained that the blueprints needed to be assembled into a scrapbook to chart the progress of Toby's design ideas. We exchanged ideas. Stephen wondered whether one could add food colouring to white sugar without destroying the crystalline structure and was fascinated to learn that powdered colours, although harder to source, are both truer and less damaging to the fondant icing's texture. He contributed the fact that he recently saw some wrapping paper depicting a wide variety of decorated fairy cakes, and  that he would attempt to obtain some in order to provide a cover for Toby's scrapbook. We felt connected in a way that has eluded us for some time.

Toby and Beatrice, meanwhile, wandered off and raided the fridge.

The Importance of the Early Years Curriculum Is...

what exactly? Toby is three. Three. He performed his nursery rhyme on Friday and we all breathed a sigh of relief. And they sent him home with homework. Homework. Toby's come home from nursery - nursery, mind, not university - with a Design and Technology project. If nursery's doing Design and Technology, what's he going to be doing at school? Aeronautical Engineering? He has to design and create the decoration for a fairy cake. Anything he likes. Fairy cake recipe attached. No adult help needed or required.
Oh well, that's all right then.
What are we doing to our children? It's all very well for Sarah to laugh and tell me to get a life. This is my life.

Sponsored nursery rhymes

For reasons best known to themselves, the teachers of Toby's nursery class have decided that it would be a really good idea for each of the children to get up and recite a nursery rhyme to the rest of the class. We, the parents, sponsor our offspring and the number of fluffy kittens who aren't drowned at birth at thelocal cat sanctuary is increased accordingly.
Fair enough. Toby knows Twinkle Twinkle. We can work with that.
But then comes the announcement that the children are allowed to dress up as a character from their nursery rhyme. Toby wants to be a wizard. So, faced with a dearth of a) wizard costumes and b) nursery rhymes about wizards, I sacrifice an old skirt and get creative with lyrics. All week now, Toby has been singing, Twinkle, twinkle, little wizard, Making snow come in a blizzard, When you cast your magic spell, Down comes snow we love so well, Twinkle twinkle, etc. Job done. Except that Sarah fronted up from New York last night bearing gifts, among which was a dragon costume. Now Toby wants to be a dragon.
'But Toby,' I say, 'we don't know any nursery rhymes about dragons.'
'Oh,' says Toby airily, 'I've got one.'
'Oh,' I say, while Sarah practically wets herself laughing. 'How does it go?'
'Dragon, raaaa, dragon raaaa, dragon raaaa.'
So there you have it.
I can't ask Sarah if she's pregant if I'm not speaking to her, can I? I only hope Mrs. Money at nursery is adequately impressed.

Here's a question. What do you cook for a dinner party when your guests are three of your best friends, when the sole purpose of the dinner is to find out who's pregnant? And when the cooking of said dinner has to be timed around the bedtime routine of two small children, at least one of whom will start climbing the walls if he realises that Beth is in the building and isn't playing with him? Is it OK to slap down a plate of sandwiches and see who avoids the pate and the soft cheese? And how do I get rid of Stephen for the evening, yet still have childcare on hand in case of sudden revelations?
Oh the trauma.

Perfect day

We took the children to the Natural History Museum this morning. Toby skirted round the animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex peering from behind my coat. Beatrice stood squarely in front of it and roared right back.
She's two and she's already learned to confront things that scare her head on instead of hiding behind a range of vaguely dissatisfied comments about nothing. And so I am going to take my cue from my daughter. I am going to hold a summit. Beth, Ruby and Sarah shall all receive dinner invitations, and Beth, Ruby and Sarah will all accept them. I shall present the evidence and demand an explanation.
It's got to be done. Whoever it is must be dying to tell me. All I'm doing is creating the chance for them to do so.