Guns and hammers.

I hate phone calls at midnight, or 5am or anytime that isn't in the middle of the day actually.
Dan always calls at bizarre times, never before 11pm, very often before 7am. This time he called at 5.20am. I try to be cheerful to hear his beautiful voice but sometimes I am grumpy. I am grumpy because I am so sure that the only reason the phone is ringing is to tell me someone died or is in hospital, weird as I have never had a phone call like that ( oh yes I did, 6.05am when my dad was breathing his last breath) For some ridiculous reason I always feel like I MUSTS sound like I wasn't asleep. " HELLO?! " Here I am wide awake just waiting for your call, you'll never catch ME out. ( unless you call at 2.30 in the afternoon, my favourite nap time, take your chance on that one if you will)
Anyway he called at 5.20am with his usual cheery and LOUD phone voice ( Dan, if you still have this blog address and are still reading, you DO have a loud phone voice, I still love you though) He called to tell me that he had just been chased by a man armed with shotgun and hammer. What a way to wake up. I really woke up and I don't think I have been back to sleep yet.... GUN AND HAMMER!!!
He was walking back from job #1, hotel manager and walked past a man in a doorway, job #2 ( policeman)makes him notice shady characters, he looked at the man and recognised him as a wanted shady bloke, as he recognised him, the man also recognised Dan. Dan walked past, went 'round a corner and called the police right away, as he was speaking he saw the man coming after him and as as he walked faster so did the man........til they were both running. Luckily armed response vehicles arrived and caught the bad man who had just done something horrible. Nice policemen who caught the bad man and saved my boy. It was 5.20am because he had been at the station writing his reports etc. all night long.
Being mother to grown kids is a million times harder than parenting babies, toddlers or under 12s.
Jordan is in Turkey, a foreign country, flying on planes and probably not putting sunscreen on or wearing a hat.
Sophie is Sophie and we try not to think to hard about what she is or isn't doing if we can help it.
Dan is getting chased by bad men with guns and hammers and walking outside when it's dark without a mummy or anything.
My hair is grey. It's winning the battle of weariness and worry.
Little people are so much easier, it's a case of shovelling mess and living with noise of such levels that your ears bleed and beg to fall off your head. I don't think I have ever seen a mother with jug ears, mothers always have ears close to their heads, it's where they are trying to escape, flatten themselves hard against the head before folding in on themselves and escaping.
Mothering little boys is more about settling arguments about who is breathing the loudest and who should be allowed to climb out of Seth's bedroom window or throw THAT basketball as opposed to any of the other 54637221 ones.
Seth has discovered reading with a vengeance. Sticky history books at the moment, he keeps disappearing into his room and curling up on his bed and reading. Oh joy of my heart. He loves having his own room, I love him having his own room and to see him read, to hear his yell " I am reading myself to sleep....DAD! I am reading myself to sleep OK?" Sheer heaven. Stay little, please for a long time.
I dread the day these little people start needing independence. I dread it.
I love this age, Eli is 4 in 2 weeks... FOUR. Isaac is 6 next month, Seth 7 next month. Someone put a hold on it right now ( or maybe when Eli is out of night time pull ups, which will be any day now, surely to goodness??) I can even cope with the toothpaste murals on my just cleaned bathroom, I will live with the wrappers that never make it into a bin, I will love the wet clothes ( n'er mind, itter dry) that Eli leaves scattered everywhere, or even never finding a complete pair of shoes because Eli cannot see a shoe belonging to anyone else and not wear it, just long enough to take it somewhere else ( our new garden is REALLY big by the way and shoes? They take a lot of finding in this place!) I'l take it
all rather than the stuff that comes with teenagers and grown kids.
I have been taking pictures of life in our barn, but with dial up....it could be a while til I download them and post any. We should have broadband back next week, I hope. Oh go on then...here's just a taster.


Looking out of the window in all te rain, wishing they could get out there! What can they see??

THAT's what they can see.......they want OUT there!

Look at the fat frog...



We have had some great sunshine the past 2 days, thank goodness, the rain was drowning my soul. I bought a rotary drier the other day, such joy I have in hanging my clothes out to dry in the country air, I honestly do keep looking outside to see my clothes line ( hello? Life? What happened?) I love the sound of the crunching gravel as we walk across to the laundry room.
The sun has made us all so much more cheerful. H has worked on the garden, little boys have played in the grass, been exploring in the open spaces, we have found fat frogs and little black scorpion like things, we have found balls and butterflies, they found the tiny stream at the bottom of the garden at 8 o'clock last night, I watched when they thought we weren't watching and it was priceless to see them looking around to see if anyone would stop them jumping and throwing stones, digging and splashing.
They are constantly dirty, sweaty, grimy, dishevelled. Perfect. One of these days I might take a picture of the bath tub AFTER the plug is pulled and they are out, squeaky clean in fresh pyjamas ( that stay fresh about 3 minutes because remember the bathrooms and bedrooms are downstairs.... blink and the buggers are out again.) that slimy, grimy, filmy layer is so not pretty!
Anyway, I digress, I was saying how much easier it is to be mum to little people than the big ones, I am so thrilled that Dan thinks of me when something huge happens to him, I love being first on his call list. I love the fact that he thinks of me and wants to tell me stuff, I just wish that stuff happened a bit earlier, or later or not in the middle of the night, just sometimes.
I shall pray that the stuff he wants to tell me don't involve guns and evil people too.