Droning On

Today hasn't gone terribly well, thus far.

I woke up with a horribly stiff neck causing a lot of pain whenever I turn to my left hand side. An old netball injury occasionally requires expensive trips to the osteopath. I'll get my wallet. 

Note to self: remove superfluous magazine-style cushions and pillows that have been artfully arranged across the bed before going to sleep. 

I came downstairs to be confronted by a utility room that was decorated in mountains of 'loose' dog poo. Not to be outdone, the cat seems to have joined in, for good measure. The description that I gave to a sleeping Hearth-Father was a little less measured, but probably not fit for blog post publication. 

Note to self: do not feed leftover chilli to the dog.

But the big story of the day came just after breakfast. Here is a picture of a sad little boy, holding an empty box:

Yesterday he enjoyed the rare treat of a visit to the toy shop. After much deliberation he chose to spend all his Christmas money on a drone. Said drone disappeared this morning on its maiden flight. Very possibly, it is perched atop our roof, or stuck inside our chimney. Looking upwards and searching the skies has done little to help my neck pain.  The strategic deployment of neighbours at upper storey windows has failed to yield any results. It is like it has disappeared into thin air. (Please let there not be any untoward activity at nearby airports this afternoon.)

Note to self: ensure seven-year-old has achieved full license before allowing solo drone flying.

Just about to attempt to cook roast lunch in an attempt to restore family harmony. What could possibly go wrong?

Currently reading: Roar by Celia Ahern

Rubik Jubilation

There are many unsolved puzzles in our house: why Crunchy Nut cornflakes seem to disappear overnight (other cereals are not affected); how it is possible that I have over one hundred odd boys' socks (not even hyperbole); why the remote control is male-gendered (read 'Hearth-Father-controlled'); why there seems to be genuine confusion over the precise meaning of the word, 'now' (unless delivered at a hundred decibels through gritted teeth). But, one mystery has finally been solved.

Gilby has persevered and solved his Rubik's cube. 

It has taken five months. Tears, tantrums, slammed doors. It has tested the patience of both Hearth-parents. 

But, finally, there was jubilation in the Hearth-household last night. 

Algorithms have not yet been learned by heart, and we are a long way from a record-breaking time, but  'tis done, and for that I am grateful. 

Currently reading: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

On Durex and Mashed Potato

In her dotage Hearth-Great-Grandma collected Andrex puppies. She saved up hundreds of coupons from toilet tissue wrappers and added to her soft-toy assemblage over several years. She was obsessed with them. When she died we took a couple away in her memory, and now the kids play with them. Yesterday they began a process of renaming different toys. 

'But you can't,' said Gilby, pointing to the stuffed Labradors, and exclaiming very loudly and publically, 'These ones are all called DUREX!'

In other news, we have taken the plunge and planned a New Year's Eve party at home for the first time in a decade. For the first time post-children, in fact. They are going to be safely shipped off to grandparents for the night, ensuring that things are able to get well and truly out of hand.

We had great fun thinking about invitations and who would come, and in the end decided that we would make it for the villagers, allowing us to use the 'hilarious' slogan: A Local Party for Local People. We got Gertie to take a kind of campaign photograph on the doorstep, arms outstretched for a handshake; placards and rossettes on display.

Hearth-Father went off delivering, gleefully, and returned, still in role, announcing that, 'The invitations have been despatched!'

'What do you mean, the potatoes have been mashed?' Eddie asked.

'And that, I announced triumphantly, is why you can come back on New Year's Day.'

Happy new year everyone! 

Characterisation through Rubik's Cubes

I owned one in the eighties (who didn't?) but was never interested enough to solve a Rubik's cube.

According to an official-sounding website : 'In 1974, a young Professor of architecture in Budapest named Erno Rubik created an object that was not supposed to be possible. His solid cube twisted and turned - and still it did not break or fall apart. With colourful stickers on its sides, the Cube got scrambled and thus emerged the first “Rubik’s Cube”. It took well over a month for Erno to work out the solution to his puzzle. Little did he expect that Rubik’s Cube would become the world’s best-selling toy ever. As a teacher, Erno was always looking for new, more exciting ways to present information, so he used the Cube’s first model to help him explain to his students about spatial relationships. Erno has always thought of the Cube primarily as an object of art, a mobile sculpture symbolizing stark contrasts of the human condition: bewildering problems and triumphant intelligence; simplicity and complexity; stability and dynamism; order and chaos.

Well, in our household it seems to illustrate not just stark contrasts in the human condition, but start contrasts in character.

Presented with a cube each, they have responded in very different ways.

Gilby has spent hours meticulously researching solutions. (I suspect that Father Christmas might even bring him a book on it.) He takes it in logical stages and is making good, if somewhat slow, progress. His eight-year-old mind wants to understand this thing.

Eddie has...ripped the stickers off and made the whole thing black so that it is perpetually 'solved'.

Eddie the Gangster

The holiday period has made me look at my youngest son in a new light.

In France we were entertained by French friends who invited us 'A la  Bonne Franquette' which, loosely translated (we thought)  is a simple supper, not standing on ceremony.

So we were agreeably surprised to discover that in reality this meant an al fresco five courses of fine food with different wines served at each course.  (Exactly like the simple suppers we have at home...) Conversation was entirely in French which meant much nodding and pointing as far as I was concerned, though my fluency seemed to increase directly in proportion to the amount of wine consumed. Hearth-Father lead the international-relations charge.

It was five hours from start to finish - how splendidly French.  The kids, however, were not as impressed as the adults with the timescale, and were restless after a couple of hours.  Ice cream perked them up for a bit, as did some French television.  Then one of our hosts, Kevin, seeing Gilby in his Arsenal shirt and recognising a kindred footballing spirit, presented him with an Olympic Marseilles teddy bear to play with. 'Say 'merci' to Kevin' chorused the adults. Delighted with his new toy, Gilby marched off to find the others. One can only imagine the scene that took place in the next room.

Eddie, all three years and several teddy-deprived hours of him, marched back outside a few minutes later - to a group of nine adults speaking an entirely foreign language. He stood framed in the doorway, chiaroscuro lighting, hands wrapped around his body, every muscle quietly and dangerously accusing. With a pitch that Marlon Brando would have been proud of, he rasped,

Which one of you out here is Kevin? 

whilst flinging his arms outwards to encompass the gathered diners.

Poor Kevin, with his limited understanding of English, needed no translation to send him scuttling off to find a second OM teddy bear - for the godfather twenty years his junior.

A fait accompli, to borrow a phrase from the French.  Fearless and ready to fight for what he wants. Never shall I worry about the youngest and smallest fending for himself again.

Which one of you out here is Kevin?

Currently reading: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (better late than never)

No Fight Left Club

So, tantrums, then.

They are a bit worse, it seems, when I am single-parenting.  Hearth-Father is away in Malta on a cricket tour.

Eddie's tantrum this afternoon was prolonged.  And LOUD.  Insistent.  High-pitched and piercing.  It made me send him to bed without any supper, which I thought only happened in Victorian novels.  This was a meltdown of epic proportions. He was utterly inconsolable.  His eyes, at one point, seemed to roll backwards in his head with the sheer effort of continuing to scream.  And when he could get words out at all, which wasn't often, they mostly involved declamations like, "I...CAN'T....STOP...SCREAMING!" with giant shuddering gulps in between.  Horrible.  It made Eddie Norton's character fighting with himself in Fight Club look rational. It's been a long while since we've had one like that.

So I'm trying to work out what caused it; because, frankly, what escalated it was that I sat his Toy Story Woody toy upright instead of laying him down on the ground flat. Yes, I know.  Call social services.

Since he turned three at the weekend, can I blame 'terrible twos'?  I'm wondering if feeding him rubbish yesterday (birthday cake, chips, ketchup, sweets) was a deciding factor.  Bad if it was, because I seem not to have fed him at all, this evening.  Daddy being away?  The fact that everyone bowed down to his will yesterday because he was the birthday boy - and then didn't today, when he wasn't?  Being exhausted after having a lovely day in glorious late September sunshine at the stoolball, at the park and playing football?E

Who knows?  All I know is that I'm as exhausted as he is.  How does a little body have so much noise and fight in it? The 'expert advice' on www.babycenter.com suggests that the number one coping mechanism during a toddler tantrum is 'not losing your own cool'.  Right.  This is followed by the advice to 'remember that you're the adult'.  Oh.

Come back, Daddy!



Currently Reading: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

For Sale Signs and Errant Pants

So we've made the decision to try and sell the house.  Again.

There is no more money in the pot, but we need more room.  When we moved here, Gertie was just a few months old, not yet on the move.  For two adults and a tiny baby it was positively palatial.  We bounced around in our big house, and once she did start crawling, I might even lose Gertie for a few moments. These days finding five minutes alone in the bathroom is an unlikely proposition.  Now there are the three little people.  And they are not so little.  They have this habit of just growing bigger.  And bigger.  By the day. Moving towards a time when they will want to spend increasingly long times alone in the one bathroom.

I can remember all the empty rooms when we first moved in and wondering how I'd ever have enough furniture to fill them.  Ha. Now every corner is crammed full of stuff.  Each inch of wall space is covered in pictures and photographs.  There are thousands of books.  Everywhere.  And that count might go up to tens of thousands if you include the boxes in the loft. There are plastic toys in places where toys simply shouldn't be. Like in my shoes. And behind the washing machine. It is impossible to keep tidy. And therein lies the first paradox.  Because in order to sell your house you need to be able to keep it very tidy.  So that it can be viewed at a moment's notice.  Well, we had our first viewing today.  It took me four hours to get things straight.  That's not happening every time, I can tell you. And when we came home there was a pair of toddler pants smiling up welcomingly from the utility room floor, that I must have missed in my final tidy-check.  That subsequently looked like they'd just walked there themselves.  Which I guess they might have done, being Eddie's.

So now I follow the children around hawk-like, beady eyes scanning for any potential mess-making hazard. They will be the first to tell you that this is not fun.

And the house we have our eye on is...'in need of modernisation'.  In other words, a wreck.  And a smaller wreck than our current abode at that.  And it costs more money.  But it is a wreck with the potential to be bigger.  At some point, when the childcare costs stop sucking the lifeblood from our very veins.

We tried to do a similar thing a few years ago, but the wreck of a house we wanted then sold almost before we'd got ours on the market and it felt like a blessing in disguise.

So I've got my eye on the estate agents' window these days.  Today I was drawn to an attractive property in the top right hand corner.  It took me a second to register that it was the one I already own. ( I say 'own'.  I think we might own approximately a square metre of the floor space, by now.  But another paradox:  It looks lovely in the pictures, all tidied up and de-cluttered.  Like somewhere I might actually want to live.

Words of Wisdom

Sigh.  The things they say.

I was a little disconcerted earlier yesterday morning, when Naga Munchetty was presenting the news, to hear Gilby turn to his older sister and giggle, 'Look how brown she is!' 

Tempted to view this as a product of Gilby's provinical upbringing, which it undoubtedly is, I also hope that his is a healthy three-year-old curiosity about difference.

Less than an hour later, Gertie was lamenting the loss of limb on a broken doll.  'But it's ok,' she consoled herself, 'she could compete in the Paralympics!' 

So we are ok on disability, if not on race.

But when Gilby rushed to show me the model he had created from old toilet rolls, boxes and a bit of paint with an excited, 'Look Mummy, I've made a space rocket!' I made the mistake of answering with a question: 'That's wonderful; are you going to fly to the moon in it?'

He looked at me with a slightly concerned expression on his face and explained, quite patiently, that flying to the moon wouldn't be possible because, 'it's only made out of cardboard.'

Which taught me not to patronise my children. 

World According to Gilby: The Little People

Gilby has very definite ideas about the way the world works.  His logic is unquestionable, with that cock-sure confidence and arms-outstretched earnestness only a three-year-old can pull off.

This morning, he patiently explains to me how his toy microphone works.

'So you see, Mummy, you just sing in to it, like this...and the little people inside join in with you to make it louder.'

I can't really criticise, since I remember as a child knowing, with absolute certainty, that the television only operated when the little people inside were awake.

If only these little people weren't confined inside their little gadgets.  There are plenty of other things I could get them to do around the house...

Going Quietly Potty

I may not have fully thought through the timing of this, but today is Day 1 of Potty Training Proper for Gilby. He is almost 2 1/4 now and really starting to show signs of interest, not least in the excitement demonstrated over the choosing of the 17 pairs of 'big boy pants' that we have invested in in readiness.

So. I've read Gina Ford (not usually a great fan, but Potty Training in One Week is exactly what I'm after, so I'm ignoring the patronising tone and trying to follow the advice). We have umpteen sets of spare clothes and pants (well, seventeen, to be precise). We are restricting ourselves to two rooms: the kitchen and the sitting room, both of which have been made as 'accident-proof' as I can manage. I have smarties with which to bribe, toys on hand to occupy, two potties at the ready, a cupboard full of disinfectant and a bucketful of patience in reserve. We're off!

I also have a 16 day-old baby. One who, up until this morning, has mostly slept through the day and kept us awake at night. But of course, Eddie has picked today to reverse the pattern, and has been awake since 7.15am, pretty much uninterrupted, aside from two 20 minute naps.

Which has meant that I haven't been able to devote quite as much time as I would have liked to Gilby's needs. And, though we have strict rules about television (as much of the bedtime hour as supper and a bath allow in the evening and some programmes on Saturday morning) I find that by 11am I have already succumbed to the controlling power of CBeebies.

By 2pm we have had three accidents and a grand total of no potty wees. Gilby has begged to have his nappy back. Eddie must be having some kind of growth spurt as I have been feeding him constantly. There is yoghurt up the walls (another story). I have just about managed to get myself dressed and my kitchen and sitting room look like an advertisement for Toys R Us.

I don't know about Gilby, but I am going quietly potty...and my bucketful of patience has only a few drops left. Ah yes. Maternity leave. I remember it now.

Life of Pie

I have written posts about the exclusive language and silly games invented by the children before. 'Ow' was a particularly good one at the end of last year, though not as impressive as my personal favourite, 'Duck Chess'.

But now, from the makers of these two thrillers, comes the new and exciting, 'Pie'. (Best said in your most impressive James-Earl-Jones-alike voice.) There are two versions of Pie - Bath Pie and Bed Pie. The rules, as far as I can establish them, are thus:

One child holds out my bath pillow (supposed to be exclusively for MY use in long, luxurious baths, definitely NOT a toy, but intrinsic to the success of Bath Pie nevertheless) towards the other and says, "What would you like?". The other thinks for a moment, then replies, "Pie!", at which response both collapse helplessly into fits of the giggles, eventually recovering enough to hand the bath pillow over to the other so that the next round can begin. There are no variations in the answer (only in the length of time it takes for each to think about it) and it is always, always funny (to them).

Bed Pie is more complicated (very slightly). This involves standing at the headboard of Mummy and Daddy's bed and counting to increasing numbers. It might start, "One, two, three...", before both children launch themselves into a forwards topple simultaneously shouting, "Pie!" The next round might count to five, or seven, or eight, perhaps up to twelve. The strange thing is that both seem to know exactly which number they will be counting to next without discussing it beforehand. The important bit, as you are probably realising though, is the shouting of "Pie!", which, you've guessed it, provokes great hilarity every time.

Now, I would like to think that my genius children are practising their Greek alphabet, or developing their numeracy by playing around with this mathematic constant. I suspect, however, that they are not!

32 Weeks pregnant: Still craving tomatoes and bored by anaemia
Currently reading: Starter for Ten by David Nicholls

Hippopotamuses and Showers

I find it hilarious the way Gilby acquires words, even faster and more furiously than his big sister did. The trouble with this incredible speed of language acquisition is that he occasionally gets it very, very wrong. I have tried to research this a little bit, but it is too scholarly and statistical for me, so I'm going with my own theories.

Apparently, when I was very small, I came rushing in to my parents' room very earnestly declaring that there was a 'hippot-mus in Teesy's bedoom'. Teesy was my name for myself, and I clearly struggled with 'r's. My parents were not convinced. Why would they be? In a second floor flat somewhere in north London, the appearance of this massive sub-Saharan African mammal would indeed have been most unlikely. But I was insistent. Very. Kept on repeating my claim. When they still wouldn't believe me I went to prove my case. I came back in with my tiny fist clenched. "Hippot-mus...HERE!" Upon opening up my hand I cried with pain as the wasp stung me. Quite how I had made the synaptic connection between the word 'hippopotamus' and the reality of a yellow, stripy, stinging thing is beyond me.

Gilby has repeated this feat, though with so far less painful consequences. He has inherited a toy-garage, one with a multi-storey car-lift. It is very exciting when you are not quite two. Except that, inexplicably, he insists on calling it a 'shower'.

Meanwhile, Gertie's current favourite programme is 'Little Bear'. At the start of each episode the episode's title appears, and being right on the cusp of reading it flashes up too quickly for her to decipher it, but she recognises some of the words and is always interested in what it is. "What does that say, Mummy?" she will inevitably ask.

Gilby has cottoned on to this, and must assume that it means 'what is that?', for now, when he doesn't know the name of something he will point at it and ask, "What does that say, Mummy?" just like his sister. Perhaps in some confused, mush-brained moment he asked me what his garage 'said' and I suggested a shower. Who knows?

Gumps' Ossage

I often write about Gertie because at Nearly-Four-Going-on-Forty, practically everything she says or does is inherently funny to me.

But my little man is now beginning to come in to his own. He won't be two until late in the summer, but the pair of them will now sit at the kitchen table together, falling about helplessly with giggles at something only they are complicit in, and being Actually-Not-Far-Off-Forty myself, I don't have a hope of understanding.

Gilby now has a bedtime ritual to rival Her Ladyship's: placing all his 'people' one by one in the cot (Iggle Piggle, Macca Pacca, Alien, a dinosaur, a crotcheted blanket and a stuffed bee with crackly wings) then gathering them beneath him mother-hen style to sleep on top of them all. They all have poky, uncomfortable looking bits, especially the dinosaur, but this doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest. I'm not entirely sure how the blanket constitutes one of the 'people', but it is at least soft. World War III breaks out if one of them is missing but as long as they are all in position, a simple, "Night, night Mummy," is followed by thumb in the mouth and lights out. This will inevitably be repeated when he still wakes for another bottle of milk somewhere between 1am and 3am.

He is exceptionally, at times, comically, polite, with an exaggerated, "No thank you Mummy," accompanying any food or activity offering not entirely to his taste. When playing he is regularly heard to insist, "My turn..." which he just looks far too little to be saying. At first this is cute and endearing, but when you realise that it is his turn straight away, always, it becomes less so. Other Mums smile at me in a congratulatory fashion the first time it happens over a disputed toy, then frown at me the next fifteen. Particularly when it is then accompanied by tears and a tantrum.

"Where's Gumps' Ossage?" is an oft-heard cry in our house too. Well, 'Gumps' only has himself to blame for this one. It has become Grumps' new nickname since their grandfather often arrives with a cling-filmed cooked sausage for each of them when he comes to visit. It may stick long beyond toddlerhood. I rather like it.

But my current favourite catchphrase and behaviour, clearly adapted from a well-known television quiz show with a distinctive presenter, is where he runs in to the room and without any preamble tells me, "You are weak! Bye!" before disappearing again.

I'm recording all this because I now know that it will change within a matter of weeks, and then I will probably forget, but I wonder about other parents' most remembered phrase and fable?

Bunnies, Bangs and Things that go Bump in the Day

You know how you have those days where the sun is shining, the kids are happy and everything goes right? Yes. Well, today was not one of those days.

We were heading off this morning to our local farm park to take part in a pet show, bringing along 'Bella' the rabbit. Except that we received an email to say that we couldn't bring the rabbit along if it hadn't had all its vaccinations. It hasn't. This news did not go down well, particularly as I had been using the pet show as a bribe for good behaviour during the week. So we had to take a toy rabbit instead. Needless to say, we did not win the show. No rosette for us.

And then on the way home...well. We've just paid a small fortune to have some new fencing done in order to create a larger parking area (the nice men finished the job at about midday), and yet I still somehow managed to hit our neighbour's car whilst trying to manouevre mine. It would not be controversial to say that they are not the most easy-going of neighbours. I have not plucked up the courage to make The Phone Call yet.

Daddy is singularly unimpressed. Especially given the fact that I now have about three metres more space than I did when we left the house. Though, to be fair, this would not be the first time I have alluded to my lack of spatial awareness, particularly where parking's concerned. 'Oh dear,' said Gilby, with characteristic understatement.

And then Gertie's little friend, Jenny, came round to play this afternoon. Her mum dropped her off just as Gilby was going down for a sleep.

'Perfect,' I thought. 'I'll get some ironing done while the two of them play nicely together.'

But then the next thing I heard was a terrific clatter and some horrendous bumps followed by some screaming. Both girls had been pushing against the stairgate and the whole thing had come away, so they had surfed down the stairs (no carpets as we are trying to sand the boards at the moment...) from top to bottom and landed in an undignified heap in the kitchen. End result? Two hysterical three-year-olds, lots of tears, an apologetic phone call to the other mum, chocolate, cuddles, plenty of applications of Mr Bump, and miraculously, no trip to casualty.

Glass of wine, anyone?

Dear Father Christmas

This was dictated to me by number one daughter yesterday:

Dear Father Christmas,

I really have been a very good girl. For ages. I have tried not to be naughty. I haven't done any snatching from Jenna or Emily at nursery, and definitely no biting or scratching. I have used the new grown-up toothpaste that Mummy told me too, even though it makes my tongue hurt. I haven't got my clothes dirty. I have gone to bed when I'm told and I haven't got up in the night. I haven't had any accidents for absolutely ages. I eat up all the things that I am told too, and even when I really, really don't like them I will have three mouthfuls.

Because I have been such a good girl, I really hope that you will bring me a space hopper and a scooter and a Hello-Kitty-cat and a clock for my room. Maybe some toy food as Kempton chewed some of it. Toy milk, please. She chewed that up.

I think that my brother, Gilby, would like a football, a tambourine and cars and a tractor. He has been a good boy too and hardly ever cries now.

With lots of love, and I'm very excited,
Gertie
(Self signed, with nine kisses)

Luckily, Santa already knew about the scooter and the space-hopper. And I am touched that she thought to ask on behalf of her brother.

I have no idea what a Hello-Kitty-Cat is and I can't think why a three year old would want a clock, except that there was one on the wall in the kitchen when she was trying to think about what to ask for. I notice there is no mention of Peppa Pig, so Santa may have misjudged her (rapidly waning, it seems) affections for old Peppa.

And toy milk? I think that this is the last year we will get away so lightly...

Duck Chess

It was bath time. I had run out of food suggestions for Gertie to mix up for me. Spaghetti bolognese, chocolate mousse, salmon pasta, a cup of tea had each been presented as a bubble-filled boat at which I was expected to slurp and make appreciative noises towards.

Suddenly the game changed. My beloved bath pillow was upturned and became some kind of gaming board. "What game would you like to play, Mummy? Fuzzy felt?"

"No, I'd like to play chess," I revealed, thinking this might floor her and we might make an earlier exit from the bath.

"How do you play chess?"

"We-ll; you have different types of pieces that you move across the board whilst trying to get the other person's king."

"Oh." She pondered my description for a moment. "Does it have ducks in?" she asked, waving a yellow plastic bath duck at me hopefully.

"Um, no."

"Well it does now. We're going to play 'Duck Chess'.

Ah. The impeccable logic of the three year old mind. Duck Chess. Of course.

I didn't win. The rules are quite complicated and known only to my daughter.

Baby Sale Hate

It's a year since I wrote my first blog post: a whole twelve months of revealing little secrets about my children to a small community of strangers. It still feels like a rather odd thing to do, but I'm hooked now.

Yesterday we went on our bi-annual pilgrimage to the local 'baby-sale'. I have to mentally prepare for these days; a necessary evil, it seems to me. Children's clothes, shoes and general stuff is so expensive that the only way we can do it is by making considerable purchases of nearly-new goods at a fraction of the price they would be in the shops.

The trouble is that the baby-sale is not a pleasant shopping experience. It is a frantic, frenzied grabbing competition where only the toughest will survive, snatching out dangerously in an effort to locate that Jojo Maman Bebe bargain or Monsoon special.

In exchange for waiting patiently and keeping her baby brother entertained whilst I wrestle with clothing racks, Gertie gets to choose a toy to take away. So it was odd to hear her say, very firmly, "I hate baby sales, Mummy," as we were en route in the car. (Of course, I hate baby sales, but I can't imagine why she should have this strong reaction.)

I thought I should get to the bottom of this, so decided to probe a little further. "What exactly is it that you don't like about them?"

This floored her for a minute. She thought very carefully, then said, "What does 'hate' mean?"

"Um. It's when you really, really, really don't like something..."

Later, as we came out (me, armed with bags of winter stuff; she, clutching her new cuddly hippo, which she christened 'Vanessa'...?) she told me that actually she didn't 'hate' baby sales. I think she genuinely didn't know what the word meant.

I felt quite pleased that it had taken her three and a half years to come across the concept of hate.

Then, on reflection, worried that she had now encountered it too early in her little life.

Teddy Did It

Ah. A new developmental stage. I wasn't expecting this one.

"Gertie, pick up those cushions you've been playing with, please."

"It wasn't me. Teddy did it."

Right.

"Don't throw those toys around."

"I'm not. Teddy did it."

'Teddy' is just three inches high, but he has a lot to answer for.