Suddenly I have all the time in the world. The little monkey is at his 'Classe Verte' all week. Today, being Wednesday, normally he is at home all day. I calculated, one hour and a half for the speech therapist this morning, about 10 minutes getting his clothes on and his teeth brushed to get him ready, another 10 minutes (at best) to get him to eat his lunch and then two return trips to the place where he does sport - about 20 minutes there, 20 minutes back and a good five minutes in between each time, so an hour and a half. Then getting him in and out of the bath and his story. By his not being here, without answering any of his questions even, I have saved about four, or four and a half hours! This means that the elder monkey has not had any one to fight with too so no sorting out squabbling time either. Virtually all the things I was stressed about not having done I have miraculously accomplished in between refreshing cups of tea. Not once has he called out 'Mummy look!' while he does a little cartwheel or does jumps on his skateboard. I have not had to stop what I have been doing once to get him to stop playing wildly with Toffee. I miss him dreadfully apart from that nagging feeling that if he wasn't around much longer I'd start having to do something worthwhile, or heaven forfend, useful, even .... Whereas, all those hours normally are just given up to loving him. So multiplying up, you could say, what a lot of productivity there is lost in the Western world, people like me who could be producing a lot more. Alternatively you could think, wow, one of France's greatest 'products' is the nurturing and loving of children, and, all the love that is given back to those lucky enough to do that nurturing, in return.