Life lessons

A random selection of lessons learned over the last 24 hours...

1. Do not assume that because you pick up Boy #2 from nursery with a full complement of clean trousers and pants that you have reached a successful end to the matter of Potty Training. It is only 'Day 7' (Geordie accent please, as usual), and as such it seems he is legally required to wait until you arrive at friend's house for the Boys to have a playdate with her two daughters before (wait for it....) parking a fatty in his pants. Again. (Sorry Bush Mummy, I know that expression is yours, but it makes me laugh each time I write it, and god do I need to laugh about this).

2. Do not for a moment think that because when you left the house for the Christmas break you left tempting bowls of mouse poison scattered artistically across the floor, the little varmints will actually have eaten them.

3. A few days after your return from that break, if you think you hear a mouse when you are alone in the house, during the day? You probably have heard a mouse.

4. It is a good idea to have a husband home when you hear the noise again in the evening, because good god, that sounds like a big one. (Do these creatures carry tools or something? I swear the one I heard last night was using a pneumatic drill as it tried to break through the door of the office where I had, coward-like, trapped it before screaming like a girl and running to Husband for help.)

5. Mousetraps may be gross. But they work.

6. If you do decide to use the Box of Death, it is a good thing for Husband to be home first thing the following morning to dispose of the evidence. (He tried to get me to look at the damn thing to see it wasn't that big. I did have a quick glance - but only to confirm that it was, in fact, wearing a tool belt and a hard hat).

6. That amazingly sometimes persistence does pay off. The editor of one of those free magazines (not one that I had previously mentioned, obviously, but a different one, I swear it!) has accepted a piece of my writing. Hurrah!


Now, it's Boy #2's birthday tomorrow. This time 3 years ago his big head was stuck, and I was mooing like a cow. Long live drugs and emergency c-sections, I say. But seriously, to all those who think natural child-birth is the way to go and that there are far too many interventions nowadays, I applaud the sentiment, but ultimately all I cared about was having a healthy baby. In the end there was only one way to make sure that happened, so we took it. And the result is our beautiful Boy #2; smart, loving, independent, stubborn, funny, bright, not yet potty-trained, and a light in my life.

Also? If I think about lessons learned, I have to say, having been through the birth process twice, and having used both the front door (Boy #1) and the sunroof (Boy #2), that the first experience made me appreciate being able to sit down after the second time I gave birth like you wouldn't believe...