Crackles, mouse and wet afternoon.

1. Alec holds his bowl up to his ear so he hear his puffed rice crackling.

2. We give Alec a chocolate button at the end of lunch and, although he really really wants to eat it, he won't touch it until we give him a piece of banana to stick it in. "It a mouse," he explains.

3. Alec goes to nursery and the cricket is rained off so I get Nick to myself.

Getting lunch, bat and character sheet.

1. To prepare lunch (just for me) without feeling as if there is a toddler time-bomb tick-tick-ticking away among the toys.

2. The cricket is rained off at lunchtime so the men come home. When I release Alec from the pushchair he immediately tells me "I've got a bat, Mummy!" Nick has bought him a miniature bat (it's meant for collecting autographs, but it's pretty much the right size for a toddler).

3. To do a small chore (printing and filling in a character sheet) to ready myself for an evening of fun next week (Tuesday Knights).

Little clothes, emergency and forgiven.

1. I find the bag of newborn clothes and sort through them ready for Little Tiny Baby. Many of them were gifts and pulling out these beautiful tiny garments is like receiving them all over again.

2. Nick and Alec pretending the pushchair is an emergency vehicle. Nick is doing the siren and Alec is steering, manfully keeping up with Nick's erratic path. Alec has such a fine broad smile on his face and I feel sad that it's been so long since I could comfortably run with the pushchair.

3. As a prize for bravery on the escalator I let Alec choose himself a sweetie in M&S. When we get to the park we discover that it was forgotten at the till. He takes the news serenely and agrees to accept a substitute from the corner shop. When we apologise once again, he pauses, searching for the right social phrase, and then says, "You're welcome."

Quick, run and green stripes.

1. To do a truly quick supermarket shop -- I was in and out in under twenty minutes.

2. Alec's swaying bow-legged toddler run always makes me want to laugh out loud, even when I know I have to give chase. He looks as if he's about to fall over, first to one side and then to the other; and he is usually laughing about whatever he is chasing (today it's his scooter).

3. The underwater green stripes on a watermelon.

Weeding, new leaves and chores.

1. To pull out a few fragrant weeds while pottering round the garden on a hot day.

2. The May sun shining through leaves that are so new they are still coloured soft yellow-green.

3. It takes a lot of patience to let a toddler 'help' with the chores. You end up with a trail of wet washing across the garden, potatoes all over the floor while changing a bed becomes a two-parent task (one to actually do the changing, the other to hunt down bedlumps). Nick is brilliant at this sort of thing, though, and with him around it's easy to slow down and enjoy the fun.

Wake-up call, the only one awake and women.

1. Nick hears Alec's small hours howling and comes down to lie beside us until things calm down again.

2. Alec is sleeping peacefully now and Nick has gone back to his attic. I'm so hungry I can't get back to sleep. The dawn finds me down in the kitchen reading about Ice Age art and eating bowl after bowl of Alec's breakfast cereal.

3. Alec and Nick looking in the Ice Age art book at representations of women with round bellies, rolling thighs and pendulous breasts. "Beautiful mummies," says a delighted Alec.

Waiting it out, against the rain and glad tidings.

1. I feel faint again so I put Cbeebies on and lie on the sofa until I feel better. Alec makes himself comfortable against my bump and Little Tiny Baby goes a bit crazy with the kicking.

2. A middle-aged couple shelter from the rain under his coat as they hurry up the hill.

3. Nick comes home with some wonderful work news -- it's a thing that we never even imagined as a possible outcome to a recent upheaval -- and it's right at the start of his holiday.