We regularly visit Derby’s infamous fish & chip shop in Belper, the food is freshly cooked and is delicious, the fish always perfect and non greasy. Bradley (4.5) and Rudy (2.5) love going there too and particularly like the free ice-cream (part of the kids meal deal) with choc/strawberry/toffee sauces and sprinkles at the end of the meal.

Today we sat in front of a Mother and her son (3), and it emerged that they knew a little boy in Bradley’s class at School. On her way out, through fits of giggles, she managed to tell me that her 3 year old had whispered to her ” Mummy… is that Peter Andre sitting there?”

The little boy was actually referring to my dark haired husband, not exactly pumped up like Peter Andre (ok he is nicely toned & good looking, I’ll give him that), I guess he could take it as a compliment. As long as that doesn’t make me Katie Price meaning we have to add another one to the brood!

I woke up the other morning to find I was sharing my pillow with a plastic rhynosaris. Then my 2 year old son, Rudy announced “he wants you Mummy” meaning that I had to cuddle the thing! We’ve also acquired a fantastic remote control replica giant tarantula spider (The National History Museum) which has been steered into my toes at every given opportunity! Sometimes I know when the spiders on it’s way over to me as I can hear peels of laughter & giggling from the boys. We actually bought it from Rudy’s playschool car boot sale at the weekend for a meer fiver! Almost new and still boxed, it was labelled up for £25 on the original packaging (NEXT). It’s great for all ages, Bradley (4.5) and Rudy (2.5) are both good at steering it around, although it is quite sensitive and you can hear the mechanics working. It’s given them more fun than any remote control car they’ve ever had and they’ve even managed to scare everyone at the local shopping centre (well some got into character nicely and gone along with the tarantula invasion). Bradley particularly loved whizzing it under the shelves at Wilkos. It’s my fave toy of theirs – it’s cool!

Whenever the weather is nice and I have to do the School run, although I go past Rudy’s playschool before home, I try to park the car at home after work, dash back to playschool (7 minute walk), then walk round to get Bradley from School, another 10 minute walk from playschool.

As Bradley’s a bit obsessed with the Wii at the moment I jumped at the chance to go to the rec on his suggestion for the last couple of warm sunny days (anything to beat square eyes!). We spent an hour there and it was great. The boys burning off energy, me catching up with the other mums and everyone just enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.

On our way home Rudy was in the pushchair and Bradley was cadging ‘a lift’ as we call it, standing on the back of the pushchair frame. Bradley suddenly announced ‘wait a minute Mummy, I have a present for you’. What could it be!? I was already thrilled he had thought about me at School, he dug deep into his trouser pocket…

A stone.

I was still touched that he’d thought of me when he had found it! Then he announced he had another present for Daddy, into the trouser pocket again… and produced the middle of a flower head, then still in the flow of generosity, dismounted the pushchair, wandered onto someones drive before I had time to protest, and plucked a handful of beautiful purple flowers saying ‘these are also for you Mummy’. Love them, you can trespass anytime honey.

It never ceases to amaze me how much a child’s brain can absorb! Their brains are like sponges. Out of nowhere Bradley (4 1/2) announced to my family on our recent holiday that “butterflies come from a chrysalis” and then went on to explain the process. A what Bradley? Oh bless him he really has been listening at School – reception year are currently studying mini-beasts. And Bradley’s not the only clever one, yesterday whilst driving back from holiday we’d deliberately not put the in car DVD player on (not sure if that was a good idea or not for a 2.5 hour journey as we were driven crazy) but at least it made the boys look around, think a bit, and not get square eyes! Rudy (3 in a couple of weeks) was getting slightly bored to say the least and started counting under his breath from 0-21. Bless him he looked embarrasingly pleased with himself as we started clapping & congratulating him on his cleverness, he didn’t know we were listening (well Daddy wasn’t really clapping as he was driving).

Bradley really suprised me this morning saying he could remember Mummy’s tummy with Rudy in it when I was pregnant! Bradley was almost 2 when Rudy was born, and Rudy’s almost 3 now. The only thing that shocked me even more was how the conversation started… I bent down to cuddle Bradley and he pointed at my tummy and asked “you have another baby in there Mummy?”
Charming. No Bradley there isn’t, it’s just a bit of baby belly overhang, the result of housing you and you’re brother in there for 18 months between you! Actually looking at it like that it’s not suprising that for some of us mums, our bodies have taken a battering from pregnancy and breast feeding. Still, it’s a small sacrifise to pay for our little cherubs…. south our skin shall go.

I’m really pleased with Bradley and his swimming lesson tonight. After usually making an excuse why he shouldn’t go, I’ve been spared the guilt for the last couple of sessions as he’s been happy to oblige. Last week Bradley was really eager to go as Daddy was able to take him (working from home), but typically the only day they go together the lesson’s cancelled – too much chlorine in the pool. Anyway, Bradley did fantastic tonight, he’s dropped another arm band and is now down to one (those disc things) from originally four, and even the swimming teacher said he had improved so much this week and was really trying kicking his legs. He was even ‘smiling’ in the pool!

I couldn’t for the life of me find my mobile this morning even when I rang it on my landline I couldn’t hear it. Oh well, off I went into town while Cy had the boys for a couple of hours (and cleaned the house I hoped!). When I got back home, Cy said that Bradley (dressed as Indiana Jones in his cowboy hat and stachel) had instigated a ‘picnic’ on the bottom bunk in his room and invited Daddy and Rudy to join him. When everyone was settled, Bradley fished around in his leather ‘Indi’ bag (actually a cast off hand bag of mine) and said “we’ve got food…” extracting plastic sausages and burgers “and we’ve even got games!” and out came my mobile! Little monkey. Rudy then piped up that the food wasn’t cooked, grabbed all the plastic sausages and burgers and made a swift exit out of Bradley’s room en-route to the plastic bbq set downstairs, Indiana Bradley protesting and hot on his trail!