"Him Make Burp!"

I miss my mom (sigh)...she flew back to Canada this week. Dumpie is especially going to miss her as he has enjoyed keeping a steady inventory of her various moves throughout the house and has delighted in keeping a runny tally of all her misdemeanors. He has definitely inherited his Grandfather's naughty side as was evidenced when he patted his little behind, called it his 'Mum-Mum', then pointed at his Grandma and giggled, spontaneously naming her "Mum-Mum". So now, probably till the end of all time, poor Grandma shall always know that however cute the moniker of "Mum-Mum" might be, it does actually in fact originate from a two year old's witty attempt to correspond his most loving relative to his beloved and most smelly behind. C'est la vie.

When Mum was here I was constantly alerted to her whereabouts by Dumps, who especially liked to note her periodic visits to the toilet. "Mum-Mum make poo poo" was a favourite of his, and my mum would exit the lavatory not understanding why I was giggling and Dumpie was standing guard outside the door with a rather impish smile upon his face. Whether she had in fact just been innocently brushing her teeth or having a bath was not the point - Dumpie was steadfast in his verdict and insistent that a 'number two' had taken place. The other morning breezing into the kitchen after a much needed lie-in, I was alerted to Grandma's serious breach of etiquette when Dumpie pointed accusingly at her and said, "Him make burp."

Poor Mum. Being the most ladylike of women, and priding herself on never broaching certain standards of etiquette (this being the self-same mother who enrolled her four young daughters into 'Charm School' after all) she was I think quite horrified to hear this particular accusation being leveled publicly against her. Even worse, after a few days it had morphed into "Mum-Mum make Toot!" and no amount of indignant protestations on Grandma's part would make Dumps renege on his story. Any attempt to do so would lead to infectious giggles on Dumpie's part and a reddening of face on Grandma's.

I am not in the greatest of moods it has to be said, given that I had another distressing visit to my dentist yesterday. The drill broke halfway through the procedure and by over-numbing my mouth with two excruciating needles, she left me looking like a stroke victim for the rest of the day. As a dentist she is lackadaisical at best about the health and upkeep of my mouth, and doesn't seem too bothered about my legitimate health concerns regarding regular check-ups and any preventative measures I might embark upon, so as to limit the amount of time we are forced to spend in each others company. Her motto is not so much preventative dentistry as 'patch-up dentistry', and it puts honest-to-goodness fear in me when she scratches her head and admits to being perplexed about what treatments might be needed.

I don't know why I'm so surprised. It's not like I haven't run into similiar worrying levels of commitment in health professionals in this country. I mean Dumpie was born on the bathroom floor of our old flat after all. My midwife had been too busy scribbling fastidiously in her files in the front room to actually register that her patient was on the verge of giving birth and she had botched any chance of me getting to the hospital in time because she was too busy sipping mint tea and filling in forms. (Then again, she did later admit that she had only been working as a midwife for less than a year, after having grown disenchanted by her last job...at McDonald's.)

I won't even get into how three days after giving birth I had to be admitted to the hospital due to a mysterious and severe infection because the instruments she had used to get the last little bit of Dumps out into the world had been dropped outside onto the muddy, wet pavement by my sis who had been frantically dispatched to retrieve them from the midwife's car down the road. I suspect it was my scream of, "I can see the head it's coming NOOOOOOOOOOWWW!!" which alerted her to the fact that she'd best put aside her notes for a moment and see what the heck was going on in the bathroom. Apparently my running from the front room in utter agony minutes before hadn't been a clear enough indication that birth was immanent. Anyway, I digress. The point is that I am well seasoned in the varying standards of healthcare in this country.

The other night as I was cooking dinner I happened to wander out in the hall and much to my horror I looked down and saw our front door swinging wide open and my 4 year old outside on his scooter about to head off into the great dark unknown. I ran down the stairs screaming for him to stay put and managed to drag him back inside only to discover that he was off to "find another family". When i asked him what had prompted his first runaway attempt he admitted that my failure to locate his beloved Nintendo game AND my forgetfulness in not bringing his scooter to school that day had caused him sufficient distress and anger so as to begin the search for better, more thoughtful parents. He then confessed that the fact that he had magically just figured out how to unlock the outside door might have played a part in his impromptu escape plan.

If that isn't worrying enough, the other day Dumpie figured out how to unlock and open our giant front room windows which when open, lead directly to a potentially lethal fall of several metres below. URGHHHHH!! We are really in for it now. The monsters are clearly gaining in intelligence and ingenuity every day whilst their father and I, judging by our ever-increasing wine consumption appear to be worryingly heading in the opposite direction and are disposing of much-needed brain cells willy-nilly. (I have always wanted to use that expression...don't be alarmed...it's a one-off)

Just keeping Dumpie in his cot these days is an exercise in futility as he is growing ever more spry and athletic. He now doesn't even need Eggie's help to lift him out of bed - he merely high jumps over the rails with the dexterity of a gymnast and lands with a loud, satisfying thump on the floor. Now in the mornings I am greeted by my own personal alarm clock, "Hi Mama...WAKE UP...WAKE UP!..." he shouts in my ear while attempting to wedge his mini plastic toys ("Go-Go's") into my ear cavity. The other morning I was even greeted by the perplexing site of his motorised 'choo-choo' train bearing down on me from the headboard as I pointlessly tried to cover my facial area so as to avoid a painful collision round about the eye area.

The one good thing of course is that here in Britain it is perfectly acceptable to send ones miniscule offspring off to boarding school when they're barely out of nappies. Though saying that, Dumpie is adamantly refusing to give the toilet even a cursory attempt and looks set to be in nappies for a good many...years (sigh). Better come up with a Plan B.