Three Beautiful Things

1. Alec lives in a surreal little world -- where toy trains eat pasta left over from lunch; a doll taking a bath in a shoebox wants to play with a full sized beach ball. He often makes these errors of scale -- several times I've seen him try to get on to a tiny swing meant for a toy, and I've seen him trying to ride in his two-inch long Thomas The Tank Engine. I don't know if he is making a genuine mistake; or if he is pretending because the absurdity of it appeals to him; or if he's play-acting. 2. We have new rituals for our walk home from nursery. Alec never fails to remind me to check the rowan berries for green shield bugs; and to pick a couple of blackberries for him from the overgrown rockery outside the doctors' surgery. 3. I never thought Gilbert and Sullivan would make me want to cry... but the ending of Yeoman of the Guard is heart-wrenching and unexpected.

1. The post brings a letter from Jen in the North* and a parcel containing a strange blue wobbly thing for Alec. 2. I was worried that I'd scared Alec with the blue wobbly thing -- because he kept jumping back whenever I squeezed it to make it puff up, and whenever I shook it to make the tentacle-hairs ripple. But when we get back in from the park, he immediately asked for lulu. When I said I didn't know what a lulu was, he went and pulled the blue wobbly thing out of Nick's slipper. 3. "New dishcloths," says Nick.** "You really know how to make me happy." * She included her Three Beautiful Things: 1. To get the bus somewhere and take in the scenery after years of car driving and not having time. 2. Changing seasons: As I walk the dog, the sun shines but I can smell Autumn coming from Scotland (My Dad says it starts there first). 3. Meeting. To pour out your problems and worries in a room full of people who have the same ones. **He'd got o...

1. To notice a slight hardness on the pink soles of Alec's feet.. 2. I sit down with Interzone and a cup of coffee and... I hadn't realised how strung out I've let myself become. Breathe. 3. We watch a recorded Prom, the Gilbert and Sullivan one . I love the Prom concerts -- they are so British, like the Queen and cricket on the green, and I always feel absurdly proud of G&S.

1. I sink into a salty bath that smells of an earthy pine forest, thanks to a Lush Geophyzz bath bomb and a copy of Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand Of Darkness *. 2. I don't really wake up properly when Nick and Alec come home towards the end of the afternoon. They snuggle into bed next to me and we all sleep until there is no chance of getting Alec to bed at a sensible hour. 3. To hand in an essay in plenty of time. I was always a last-minute sort of person at university, but the time constraints I'm under now mean that I need to click submit 18 hours before the final deadline. *It's one of the texts for my course, and it is both alien planet travelogue and a social science fiction thought experiments. These are two genres that I like very much indeed.

1. To find a last piece of crackling on the carving board. 2. I'm apprehensive about letting Alec go on the scruffy fibreglass train that screeches and scrapes its way round a tiny track. I remember feeling afraid and alone on rides as a small child. The other children sit with fixed stares, and some of them are riding with a parent. "You hold on," I tell him. He grips the window frame with one hand, and his knuckles are white for the entire rattling, shuddering ride. He looks straight ahead, but waves with his free hand each time he passes. I lift him out when the door is opened, glad to feel his weight and his kicking legs. "What now? Chair-o-planes?" "More, Mummy. More toot. More toot." He rides a second time -- this time in a carriage with a bell. He has to reach right up to hold the chain, and his baby-fat arm is too tightly stretched to shake the clapper. He keeps hold until I lift him out. At the end, he asks for more again. I tell him: ...

1. I really to turn my pancakes, but Alec is shrieking with laughter and asking me to chase him round the kitchen with the fish slice. 2. Alec stands on a kitchen chair and examines little piles of all my scone ingredients. It's funny how much more pleasant life with a toddler is when you just accept that there will be mess. 3. We do know that Alec is going to be up all night if we all fall asleep in the afternoon -- but we do it anyway.

1. When Nick comes down into our bed, Alec laughs in his sleep -- and such a sweet, gentle laugh, as if he has been moved by something as lightweight and transient as a soap bubble. 2. The twins are nine weeks old now, and if you watch their faces carefully, you might get a smile. Daisy's is so broad that it moves her ears. 3. To peel off a pair of rain-soaked jeans and put on dry ones.