Today I walked to the museum with Arthur and Elliott. I like a walk and I timed it so they slept for the duration. I stopped in town to pick them up some socks and vests. I managed to resist the urge to buy Gruffalo pyjamas.

When we got to the museum (against better judgement) I ditched the buggy in the foyer and attempted the museum on foot with a child holding each hand. They were very good and both held a finger and didn’t run off. Elliott tried his luck a couple of times but he seemed to get the idea that running away from me was a no go.

We looked at the fish and the dinosaurs and then I took them to the kid’s room. It is a big room full of activities and puppets, a giant mousehole they can crawl through and random other crap that toddlers love. The place was full of my worst nightmare. 6 boys ranging between 20 months ish and 3 all charging about and yelling and jumping. There was also the other end of the scale, two babies under 3 months that were on cushions on the floor.

Not only was I frightened about the big kids barging into my little ones and knocking them down, I also had to have eyes in the back of my head incase my big kids stomped on the babies. Or, god forbid, did their number one pass time at the moment. This consists of gouging at my eyes whilst saying eyeeeeeeees not a good one to inflict on a new baby.

It didn’t help that the other mums seemed more interested in chatting about the feature wall in the lounge and whether or not Kelly’s husband was having an affair than what their kids were doing.

(That is pure jealousy kicking in as I would have dearly loved an irresponsible friend with decorating and marital issues to have been chatting to.)

Anyway, all was fine. The big kids were really lovely with my babies and treated them very gently. The 3 year old tried to include Arthur in his game of diggers and the 2 year olds were really sweet with them and looked after them. Elliott at one point made a beeline for a baby but just pointed said ‘baby’ then stole the baby’s fish puppet and ran at me making a fish action with his mouth. I think he realised that you don’t harm babies but they are damn easy to steal from.

So that was that, not too scary. Elliott’s day was made when the cutest little 16 month old red head tottered in with her Granny. He turned on the charm big time. All she wanted to do was steal his biscuit. Typical woman!

Here are some pictures of a twinkly cave. Arthur loved that he could put his finger over a twinkle and it glowed orange like ET’s.