It’s pink. It has tassles on the handlebars. It has a seat for a toy and beads on the wheels. It has a bag on the front. I think I kept my side of the bargain.

Not something I’ve posted about very much here – she deserves a bit of privacy just like anyone else – but we’ve been having some trouble getting M to poo in a potty. Not that she does it on the floor or anything horrid, it’s just that despite having been out of daytime nappies since last summer and dry at night for over a month now, she always demanded a nappy for a poo. We’ve tried everything: getting Weebee (favourite bunny toy) and Ginger (favourite cat toy) to do it, talking in glowing terms about her peers who can do it, promising chocolate and ice cream if she managed, getting cross, staying completely calm and laid back and not letting on it mattered (admittedly we were really bad at this strategy, and she’s not stupid), telling her the nappies will go away…but no good. She’s always (sorry, this post is definitely entering the realms of over-sharing) done it standing up so having to sit on loo or potty just seemed very difficult for her.

Two days ago, I promised I’d buy her a pink bike if she managed.

Last night, she did it.

I didn’t mean to disappear for so long, but rather overcompensated for Cameron being away this week and arranged so many activites, outings and visits – plus took on some work – that I barely found 2 minutes of my own. I estimate I lose an hour’s sleep every night when he’s away: evenings are spent doing jobs that he would usually do, or that we would do between us (ie I have to get M to bed and clear up after tea and get the laundry in and sort Tamsin out and close up the greenhouse and and and) so I go to bed later than normal, then, in the morning, who gets to deal with a bouncing 3-year-old demanding “breffast NOW”? Plus getting up in the night if required (drink/wee/new sheets/bad dream*), and waking albeit briefly and incompletely to feed and resettle the baby? Me. Yawn.

Anyway, he’s home: hooray. And I’m back both here and on Lisa’s dinners (and on all my normal message boards – and, probably, commenting on a blog near you soon).

Tamsin had her first swim this week and just loved it. You have never seen such a happy smily kicky splashy baby in all your life – looks like I have another water baby. I’ve managed to find her a class that coincides with Maggie being at preschool (although Tamsin has to sit on the side while Maggie has her swim – and this morning had to sit and watch Tumbletots. Which she did quite happily, mesmerised by all the large running climbing jumping bouncing balancing boys and girls).

*Last night I was woken at 4 by a scream of “I want to open my banana”. No, I have no idea. Preschoolers are nuts.

Absolutely and utterly fed up and grumpo today – and I can’t quite put my finger on the reason. The sky is grey, which isn’t helping but is something I generally take in my stride – one has to if one lives in Cheshire. Cameron is in Germany, but back tonight only an hour or so later than usual, so I don’t think it is that. Maggie is driving me nuts: for some reason she is awfully insecure and clingy today. Doesn’t want to go more than about a foot from me and prefers to hold onto my leg if at all possible (so I keep tripping over her). That isn’t helping either but I think it’s something more fundamental than all that: if I could just have half an hour off from being Mummy I could sit down and have a think and figure it out. (Huh. Who am I trying to kid? If I had half an hour off from baby-on-knee and preschooler-clinging I would have to tidy the house, do the ironing, cook tea and edit that unsolicited manuscript.) Oh, and Tamsin is the baby who will not nap.

A weekend of ups and downs to say the least. Friday was the traditional bank-holiday trip to Homebase for some wood (woo) – we now have a shelf up above the shiny new fridge. I got 2 rows of potatoes planted on Saturday: gorgeous out in the sunshine and a friendly robin kept perching stereotypically on my fork handle. Yesterday was really lovely: the sun shone, I turned my compost (a bit smelly as it’s rather too “green” not enough “brown”, and I honestly didn’t realise before I started that next door had guests – hope it wasn’t too stinky for them) while Cameron and Maggie made a lovely lemon yogurt cake, then we all spent the afternoon in the garden with the papers, tea and cake: M watered all the plants and next-door has got some very small and sweet puppies who peeped through the hedge at us.

Today has contained more downs. We had a very unusual lie-in, which the fortunes punished by means of a completely out of control screaming child. I am still at a loss to know what it was all about, but not a pleasant experience and frankly I’d rather have got up at 8 and had a little more emotional balance to my day. She’s been out of sorts all day (and regressing potty-wise too; I do hope she’s not getting ill again), to the extent that she lay down on the floor and refused to move in the middle of the garden centre, where she had been playing perfectly happily just the minute before. Oh, such joy. Cameron flies to Germany this evening and can’t get away soon enough.

I obviously told my Japanese agency that I would be returning to work after Easter as I logged on this morning to find a manuscript awaiting me – despite not having re-contacted them since T was born. I’m going to give it a try and see how I get on (they know how to flatter, telling me it was from one of my regular authors and suggesting I have been missed).

And, I think, somewhat mixed feelings about it (M, not me). I sang half of happy birthday to her this morning before she burst into tears – my singing is not that bad – although I think that was more to do with being still quite under-the-weather. Some lovely presents and a phonecall from Grandma cheered her up no end, then we spent the morning at soft play before a dose of Calpol was required to get through the afternoon.

Daddy was home for the day too, which is a treat. Of course he has spent much of it trying to sort out the fridge which for the record is now in place but not working. We have an engineer coming on Friday (insert lots of unprintable words here) and have visited B&Q twice: oh joy.

A  fit for a

Am I going to be socially shunned if I don’t provide a full-on party tea tomorrow? Do five 3-year-olds really need or want sausage rolls, sandwiches and chocolate fingers at 3 in the afternoon? I am leaning towards just juice* and cake to go with the musical bumps and pass the parcel but will they feel deprived not to have jelly and ice cream?

We have wine for the mummies, which is surely the important thing.

*Apple juice, of course: I tried but just could not bring myself to buy squash yesterday. I know, I know. I did buy chocolate buttons.

I’m running on about 5 hours’ sleep again but I promise not to rant today – am more inclined to sigh sadly in between bouts of thousand-yard staring. This serenity despite watching a documentary on Gina Ford last night (I know, weeks after everybody else) that had me shouting at the screen – am home alone, this is even more nuts than it normally would be – and one with Louise Redknapp dieting down to a size zero the previous night. At least Cameron is coming home today so, telly-wise, normal service will be resumed.

I do not have the mental acuity today to work out why Maggie is sleeping so badly at the moment. Any suggestions, anybody? Is it really just to wind me up, as I suspect?