Bringing up Boys: Mummy Monsters need their sleep!

I’m lying in bed exhausted and very, very grumpy. Why is it that whenever I get a free pass to have an afternoon kip my boys decide that it is time they played in their bedrooms – loudly?
I bellow at them from underneath the covers, which of course is pretty useless as the muffling properties of one 13 tog duvet, one 100 year old Eiderdown, a fake fur rug and a large green candlewick bedspread of indeterminate age and ancestry, is going to be hard to break through even with my fog horn of a voice.
My dad says I could stand at Flamborough Head and keep the shipping lanes free so loud and carrying is my voice. He’s also called me an Old Fish Wife and he meant it!
However, despite my bellowing and screeching, there is hardly a lull in their enjoyment. So crossly I haul myself from the double bed and stalk over to the top of the stairs, which acts as the entrance to my attic hideaway, and bellow again.
There is a petrified silence, and grumbling and muttering the Mummy Monster stumbles back to its nest.
Downstairs the bad rabbits unfreeze and start to move about again: hippity hoppity. Quiet at first then growing louder and louder as their game of Narnia starts to get more and more exciting. There are baddies at the door and quick they must charge: “For Narnia and Aslan!!” The door is flung open for the brave knights to advance - and I am standing there. The Mummy Monster is NOT pleased.
It orders them to retreat to the Playroom forthwith or suffer a variety of dire consequences ranging from “No more Telly!” to “NO Nintendo!”, “No Jelly Cat!” and even worse banishment to the green house – FOREVER!!!!!
One pair of very quiet sad rabbits troop away all of five feet before there is a push and a shove and they race down the corridor to the stairs yelling about who will get what when they reach the playroom.
The Mummy Monster glowers after them and returns to her pit to sleep.
It is warm and quiet – blissful.
Bog Boy: “Mummum? Do you want a huggy?”
It’s a question I hear from far away down the bottom of the stairs.
Bog Boy: “Mummy? Do you NEED a huggy?”
I hear the pad pad pad of feet tramping up the stairs and I cannot say no can I?
I emerge from the depths and hold out my arms and get the biggest Hug. And the tears start to roll. There he is all of nearly four years old and he is hugging me, the Mummy Monster. The Boy appears from downstairs, curious.
The Boy: “Why are you crying?”
Me, drying my eyes: “Because…”
Because Bog Boy will be the one who holds me when I am old and alone, he’ll be the one to dry my tears, making it better. You’ll be the one organising everything longing to get closer but not knowing how, scared of rejection, being brave and carryingon.
I open my arms wider to dispel these nonsensical prophecies and we all hug and then the Mummy Monster has a quick tickle and there is a squeal of laughter and much giggling before a romp takes place on the bed with duvets, eiderdowns and fake fur rugs.
The Mummy Monster will just have to get some sleep later or perhaps tomorrow when they are at school and nursery….