Reflection

So I sat down at my computer this evening with no earthly clue on what to write about. It's not for want of material; we've had a busy weekend. Husband celebrates a 'significant number' in birthday terms tomorrow (am telling no tales but it's one I hit a couple of years ago and rhymes with naughty - as if...), so we've had family here, and will again tomorrow. The Boys have been delighted with the influx of visitors, running around lavishing loving attention on anyone who pays them the compliment of listening to them, and behaving with elder-statesman-like benevolence toward their 18 month-old younger cousin. Who, of course, worships them in much the same way that they hang onto the every word of their older cousins.

And the pride I felt in them as they behaved even better than could be expected during our celebratory family meal in a local restaurant yesterday evening wasn't something I had thought of writing about, half an hour ago. (When I say 'even better than could be expected' let's not think too much about the restaurant patrons who later on sat at the same spot we did, and that they may be confusedly picking stickers of Pirate Dinosaurs off the soles of their shoes today...)

I was also not thinking of recording the fact that today Boy #1 and I made a 'secret' trip out to High St Kensington to buy 'secret' supplies to decorate the flat for tomorrow's festivities, during which he behaved beautifully. Especially whilst trying to dodge the other shoppers out enjoying the sunshine when carrying the 'secret' balloons back to the car for our clandestine trip home. (Note the use of apostrophe's around the word 'secret'. It's hard to keep anything 'secret' when your very excited 5 year old asks you - in front of the one person who is not supposed to know about their existence - when you are going to put the balloons and decorations that you have just bought up...)

And yet, despite all of these goings on, I was feeling a little short of inspiration. Even Boy #2's running narrative on the blood-thirsty activities of the t-rex that accompanied him to the dinner table was failing to make the cut. My heart was hardened to plight of the babies and mummies the nasty dinosaur was gobbling up for his tea, and the news that the day was to be saved after all by a kindly tricerotops rampaging over from the other side of the table to put an end to Rex's toothy reign of terror was like water off a duck's back. (Did you know that the tyrannosaurus' one fatal flaw was to have arms so short that when he got knocked over, he wasn't able to use them to get up again, instead being left to perish on his back like a dying fly? Neither did we before this evening.)

So in any case, there I was, logging on, and wondering why. Asking myself if there was anything that had happened I could possibly write about. Until I read Reluctant Memsahib's latest post.

It reminded me that sometimes (and don't worry, not too often), blogging is not about coming up with witty takes on standing in Holland Park playground watching puddles form by your still-not-quite-potty-trained three year old's foot, when your husband has left the bag with the change of clothes in it in the car, which is ten minutes walk away. Or about recording the John Wayne-like way said Boy swaggered back there, minimising the discomfort of wet pants in his own stoic and indomitable way. Though now I come to think about, that also happened this weekend.

No, sometimes blogging can be simply about bottling the memories of your children as they are now, at this moment, in this so-fleeting time; when Mummy is still the person they want to marry when they grow up, when parents have all the answers, and are Alpha and Omega and everything in between.

They're asleep now. I think I might just go and have a look, listen to their breathing, gently stroke their cheeks, and remember how lucky I am.