Right now...

• Little man is looking extraordinarily cute in his fluffy new dressing gown. Thank you grandma and grandad.
• He is playing his new incey wincey spider game by himself, by which I mean he's shaking the dice and counting the spiders (four).
• We're having breakfast after a bit of a lie-in. I gave B the usual 'it's too early to hide from dinosaurs' spiel when he first arrived in my room then realised it was twenty to eight so sang the 'Mummy loves B/what shall we do today?' mash-up instead.
• I want to take the Christmas tree down but suppose I should wait until Saturday.
• I'm wondering with amusement what little man will make of YO! Sushi, which is where we're going for lunch.
• At the moment he's eating some peppered salami, but eating all the peppery bit at once and telling me it's too spiky. Oh, now he's telling me to eat the pepper 'snake'.
• The new toy  house is taking up a lot of room in the dining room, which is required for a family dinner tonight.
• I'm trying to decide which sling to take on the train to Liverpool, which is a tough one because B usually walks everywhere these days (everywhere usually being ten minutes into our local town). In fact, it must be weeks and weeks since I carried him.
• I'm going to make my second cup of tea and still lamenting the absence of a nice man to do it for me, although I can't stand the thought of actually having to share my house with someone else at the moment.

A funny sort of day

It's the second anniversary of discovering the husband's infidelity. I wish now that I hadn't chosen Boxing Day to snoop on his 'spare' mobile phone, but that was when the opportunity presented itself and my intuition had been telling me for some time that there was something going on. If it hadn't been Boxing Day I would have long since forgotten the precise date, but now I get to remember it every year. Woopee. New year's resolution number one: get divorced.

I had a strange journey home from work today too. Oh yes, I have to work Boxing Day and bank holidays. Anyway, my windscreen wiper jets worked on the way home for the first time in about a week after I topped them up with super-duper concentrated stuff. When I say 'I', I mean the STBE-husband did it when he came over to collect little man. Strange again.  Anyway, there I was experiencing a feeling of pure joy at being able to clean the windscreen (I mean it; commuting in this snow and ice is really getting to me), when I saw brake lights ahead. It looked very much like someone had jumped from a bridge over the M6 about five cars in front of me. For me, it was the first time I've ever done a three-point turn in the middle of the motorway.

I'll be glad when the thaw comes. Yes, the snow is very beautiful and yes it's nice to go out and throw snowballs. But when you have to drive in it, it's stressful. I haven't been able to go the shortest route from my house to the main road because the slope is too steep and my heavy tank of a car's wheels spin too much (New year's resolution number two: keep saving for a smaller car). So I have to drive the long way round in thick snow and slush to get to a junction which is slightly less steep but is on a blind bend. And I still can't pull out quickly because my wheels still spin a bit even when I do it in second gear. Then there's been the non-working windscreen wash jets, which means I've had to pull over on the hard shoulder or go into services a couple of times on the way to and from work just to be able to see where I'm going. All in all, not nice.

Back to Christmas Day. Daddy came over while there were still a few pressies left to unwrap. We all went to see the chickens together to give them a festive treat of boiled peelings. Yum. I cooked dinner, he washed up, which is, in my opinion, a perfect division of labour. We had a very nice bottle of Orvieto. Little man ate lots of turkey and very little else. The little fella hugged his new dolls' house and parked his new Cars (the film) racing cars in the attic and made us green cakes in his new toy food processor. Then daddy left and B and I went up to grandma and grandad's, where he made more green cakes, this time with a little brown in them (chocolate!). Now I just need to quietly remove some of his old toys and take them to the charity shop.

The latest thing

Little man's current obsessions:

• Snip, snip, snipping away with a little pair of scissors. I think they're actually scissors from my own childhood. He started on last year's Christmas cards, which I saved thinking he would make pretty Christmas pictures with them. They've now been reduced to confetti and he's started cutting anything that moves. Or doesn't move.
• Using my hair clips as if they were JCB-style grabby things. (If anyone knows what that part of a digger is called, do let me know.) Two broken so far. A wide range of items have been transported around the house.
• Asking for a big truck for Christmas every time anyone inquires as to what he would like. He's not getting a big truck. He's getting a dolls' house. He will love it, but more about that some other time.
• The film Cars, which he had been watching on daddy's mobile phone and I have now had to acquire. It is the first thing he requests when we get downstairs in the morning at the moment. It's probably my least favourite of all the children's animation films I've been forced to watch.
• Hiding from monsters, dragons, dinosaurs and tigers.
• Pleading to come to work with me. 'B a come a work with you. Pleeeease mummy, Pleeeease mummy.' Also saying many times a day: 'Daddy come now?' and: 'I want mine daddy back.'
• Trying to dig the frozen ground at the allotment every time we go to check the chickens (and defrost their water).

Please mummy

The small boy has become ludicrously polite of late. I've always tried to do the 'please' and 'thank you' thing by example rather than demanding he say them all the time. I really don't think he should have to say them every time he wants something that an adult can easily get for themselves, like a snack or a drink or a book to read. But recently he has been saying please a lot. An awful lot. I think he's cottoned on to the fact that it's harder to say no to him if he's being ever so polite about it. He even says please when he's making crazy requests like: 'Please mummy can I cut your leg with my scissors. Pleeeease mummy.' Er, no little man, you can't.

That kind of parent

I've never wanted to be the kind of parent that snaps at my child, always telling him to stop doing things, constantly grinding him down with negativity. The kind who says such things as: 'Stop that, don't be silly, it's not funny, blah, blah, blah.'

Of course, these things sometimes pop out because I'm far from being the ideal parent. Little man has the perfect answer. When I let out a desperate scream of: 'It's not funny!', he replies: 'It's a bit funny, mummy,' with a look of such utter cuteness that all I can do is agree.

Yes poppet, it is a bit funny. Let's have a giggle instead of all that grr-iness.

What else have we been up to? Well, after managing not to watch a second of a certain talent contest on the telly (although having to deal with stories about this show every day at work), the programme thrust itself on my notice by taking a Biffy Clyro song and turning it into garden centre-style croonery. Oh well, at least it might lead some people to see the light and listen to the real thing.

Rhubarb wine has also happened. A delicate, rose-style bouquet with a light effervescence. Given the quantity imbibed, I don't think it can have been any stronger than beer. And I'm counting it as one of my five a day.

Lack of exercise has also been on the menu due to the cold from hell. It's really the third cold I've had in quick succession and which will probably rumble on until spring if previous years are anything to go by. I haven't been swimming or to the gym, but I did make it to a new tai chi class I started going to a few weeks ago.

I've also been working on a little literary sideline, of which I really can't reveal any more without having to wipe all your memories with a Jedi mind trick.

Conversations

Little man had a lot to tell me at half past six this morning after a long weekend with daddy.

'B a big boy. Mummy a lady. Daddy a big man. B grow da big man [B will grow up into a big man.] B is your friend. Hide, mummy, a big drag[on] come. A big green drag[on]. Mummy's feet in. Daddy got cars film on his phone. Daddy bumped his car in the ice. Daddy broke his old car. Daddy got a new car. B get da bogey in mine nose. B squash dat [my boob, that is]. My wood hammer is downdestairs. My wood hammer. Go downdestairs get mine wood hammer. Warm milk, mummy. WARM MILK, MUMMY!'

I tried to tell him that mummy could also be referred to as a woman, since I am not a member of the nobility. But he wasn't having it. He is also adamant that he is not a little boy any more. And daddy did in fact write his car off in the ice last week and have to buy a new one.

Progress

I've made a big dent in the to-do list. Enough to stop it bothering me any more. Take that, list. I've also rearranged The List into a series of post-it notes stuck to the side of a cabinet in the kitchen. It means I can bin tasks as soon as they're done instead of having an actual list with lots of crossings out and those things that never get done and have to keep being transferred onto a new page. And I found a stack of post-it notes whilst sorting out a drawer full of old stationery supplies. Even some pink ones.

The boy spent most of last week feeling seriously grumpy. He bit the inside of his cheek, which of course made it swell up and easy to bite again. And again. He got very frustrated at trying to eat and kept telling me his tummy hurt, which was probably because he was hungry. He had lots of jelly, hot chocolate and pink milk. Even the hot chocolate was a problem though, because he knows you shouldn't eat or drink things that are too hot. So I had to call it warm chocolate, otherwise he would leave it until it was stone cold. Yuck. Anyway, his mouth was getting to be much better when he slipped off his little step in the bathroom, banged his chin on the wash basin and bit his tongue. By then it was daddy's turn to take over the cuddles and sympathy.


Daddy took over early so I could go to see Biffy Clyro in Manc. And blimey, they really are rather good. It was a fab night, except for the part where I fainted. Erm, not sure where that one came from. I'm putting it down to a lack of air flow in a crowd due to my small stature. Anyway, I was out cold like a teenybopper at a Justin Bieber gig. Ironically, I then got a better view from the edge of the hall where there was also more air. And the gentleman pictured is, in fact, my current teenage crush material. I think I need to get out more. Oh wait, I was out. My iPod is one step ahead of me though and has moved on to the somewhat mind-bending Marmaduke Duke, a funky and addictive Biffy Clyro-related ensemble.