Don't tell him when he's older...

...but the spud has had a slightly over-emotional week this week.

I don't know why I'm using euphemisms like 'slightly over-emotional'... I guess I'm thinking that one day in the far future he may want to read these blurtings and I wish to spare his blushes. This is ridiculous as I am clearly about to spill All The Beans There Are and euphemisms will be out the window in the next paragraph. So, I'll start again.

My Spud has been a teensy bit possessive of me this week. Even my Motherhood brain, which becomes over-stimulated at the slightest movement of the spud's smallest finger, is a little taken aback by it all.

I think it all began when his childminder took on a new child a couple of weeks ago and, while he seems very fond and brotherly towards the new arrival (a nine-month-old girl) the problem is that his minder can no longer come to fetch him from the house and we have to drop him off. This is quite a big move as our spoiled little Prince Edward Island potato has never ever been left behind - people always come to get him. She comes to get him from us, we come to get him from her... in his mind, people love him and keep coming to get him. So this new thing where we take him to hers and desert him has taken him by surprise and we are getting the full-on arms-round-the-ankle-please-Mummy-don't-go hysteric treatment every time we leave him behind.

While this is to be expected, there have been a couple of unexpected side-effects to this and one of them is that he has reverted back nine months and wants to breast-feed again. This sounds very sweet, a little sad and no doubt medically and psychologically understandable but the upshot is that I can no longer pick him up for a cuddle without getting a sneaky little hand down my bra. My boobs, in which he has always maintained a somewhat proprietary interest have once again become His Property, as has everything else in the flat. I read a comedy 'Toddler's Rules' thing the other day which said 'If it's in my hand, it's mine, if I like it, it's mine, if it looks like mine, it's mine; and everything else is mine too' and I think my boobs qualify for at least 3 out of those 4 statements for spuddy boy. The worst part is that we have reached the stage where Mummy must no longer get dressed in the morning in front of her offspring as he stands wide-eyed in front of her pointing at the puppies shouting 'That! That!' or just pointing and jeering, as though I was suddenly 13 and caught naked in the playground.

I say that having to get dressed in the loo is the worst part but I lie again. Firstly, there is nowhere in our flat which is sacred or secret and the trick is to manage one's ablutions while one's partner is In Sole Charge of our offspring or one finds oneself with one leg in and one leg out of one's knickers while the door slowly opens as if directed by Hitchcock.

Secondly, however, there is The Incident which sparked my sudden retreat into the closet, as it were. Imagine, if you will, the telephone ringing while one is getting dressed. It's a call one has been waiting for and therefore one downs tools and rushes to the phone. Now. One, ok bugger it I, was sitting topless in the livingroom armchair hoping my hair would disguise the worst of my sins while happily chatting away when up comes the spud, sweeps away my hair and... latches on. Latches on, I tell you. He latched on! He's not been breastfed for over nine months and yet... all that time he was harbouring a memory. All those little pinches and prods at my boobs which I thought were just vestigial mammaries (sorry) were, in fact, Hopeful Little Hints. He was very cautious, I have to say and after gently and unsuccessfully sampling both of his old friends he looked at me reproachfully and walked away. Perhaps this was a good thing as he seems completely uninterested in my boobs now.

This is not all, however. No, the spud evinced one more possessive bit of behavior this week which I shall refer to simply as his 'Alpha Male' moment and which involved him coming up to the Frog and I during a little huggy moment, breaking us apart with a push to a parental chest, clutching my hand tightly and giving me a big kiss on my cheek while staring reproachfully at his father.

Hopefully all this will die down as he becomes used to being left behind and once again becomes comfortable with his status in the house however meanwhile I will be the one dressing and cuddling my spouse in the loo with the door locked...

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