Territorial Army

When you are a mother of three boys, most people look at you pityingly and ask ‘Did you ever want a girl?’  Now this is a kind of pointless question to ask, as the laws of nature pretty much dictate what you are going to get, but actually, it would be lying to say that at no point had I entertained the idea that there may be a pink bedroom in the house.  Indeed, I will go so far as to say that once Little Man was born, and the euphoria at seeing his squashed up grumpy face had subsided into the Sore Boob and Sleepless phase, I did have a little wail.  ‘No one will remember my birthday… I’ve got no one to go shopping with… the house will smell of sweaty socks and Man Gas’ and so on.  G just raised his eyebrows, patted me on the arm and went off to make me a cup of tea until I came to my senses again.

But I couldn’t be more wrong.  You see, to a boy, as a mum you are his first love.  All three of mine as under fives have asked me to marry them, and got very upset when I said that I was already married.  All three of them say that I am the best cook in the world.  I have been presented with lovingly crafted bits of junk from clay (for keeping my jewelry in), countless Hama bead keyrings that fall apart in my handbag, pictures galore in which I feature with brown hair, blue hair, green eyeshadow, a variety of exotic outfits more befitting Carmen Miranda and lots of little notes.  And every birthday I get a bunch of flowers, a cake and depending on who has gone shopping with G, a hand chosen selection of things that I didn’t know I wanted. 

And now Eldest Son is taller than me, he has started to become quite protective of me, preferring to shelter me from the slings and arrows of  life.  Middle Son is flexing his pre-teen muscles and so poor old Dad gets that Alpha Male confrontation we see in every David Attenborough show, but which I escape by virtue of being female.  And Little Man still wants to marry me (or possibly one of the many girls he knows… but at least I feature in the list).

But of course I have another pre-teen in the house and that is Muttley.  Rapidly rounding the corner to a year old, he has got taller, filled out more and he’s developed a deep bark that he uses to great effect – even frightening himself sometimes.  He is still gentle and very soppy, and hasn’t got to that stage which has been so perfectly encapsulated in Meet the Fokkers with the dog and the toy.  But he has teeth.  And these became apparent one day when we went on a walk to the tennis courts.

The boys were messing around playing on the local tennis courts, it was a lovely afternoon and so I took Muttley for a little walk on the field next to them.  I was very proud of myself because I was wearing my brand new wellies, which were fetchingly attractive in a faux fur edging.  There was another dog, an enormous boxer, which was playing ball with his owner at the other edge of the field.  Muttley had his intense stare fixated on the stick that I had in my hand and so he was not at all interested in the other dog.  But the boxer made a beeline for us, and so I put on my most winning smile (funny what you do to dogs) as he was really rather big and battle scarred.  He completely ignored me, did the dog-to-tail dance with Muttley, and then for some indescribable reason, came and stood by my side, looking at his owner.

Within 30 seconds, I realised what he was doing.  He had cocked his leg, and was peeing on one of my furry wellies. Warm fluid ran down my leg.

I yelped and leapt back, his owner started running towards us, Muttley started barking frantically to protect my honour and the dog pounced on him. Within seconds they were rolling on the ground in snarls and bites, as the other owner launched himself on his dog, grappling with him.  He had not brought a lead, and after apologizing profusely, frogmarched his dog back to the car, both hobbling. Muttley was totally unscathed, and sat there panting as the boys ran up to see if we were all right.  They all high fived the dog for his part in protecting Mummy and fussed round me.  

 

My very own little Territorial Army.