I have always remembered a story my Mum told me, of when me and my cousins where younger, altogether there were 7 young children, and we were visiting my relatives. All was well the adults were in the lounge and all the children were off playing nicely, ha ha, on closer inspection it was discovered that us little darlings made emptied a whole box of cornflakes down the hall way and were taking it in turns to run down and crush as many as possible. At least we were resourceful, we played nicely without hassling the grown ups, what was the problem? This got me to thinking of things my kids had done.

Only this morning my 7 year old daughter was helping Daddy polish the living room, he asked her to spray the dining room table for him whilst he did the coffee table. I just happened to walk into the room at this point, and spotted Daddy’s little helper deep in thought and working hard, then I spotted it, on my lovely new pine table she had written in furniture polish, ‘you have missed a bit’. She was so proud of her art, I even praised her on her spelling, bless, Daddy on the other hand, had the task of cleaning it all up.

Some times things can get a bit scary when a child is left alone with his imagination, and his brother. When my son was about 4 he was playing Superman in the bedroom with his 6 year old brother, when there was an almighty crash, followed by screaming. We rushed up the stairs to find one boy cowering in the corner screaming, the younger one was laying on the floor covered in blood, with blood all over the wall and wardrobes, as we scooped him up, he complained ‘my flying powers don’t work’. After a night spent in hospital, and no permanent damage done, my son was still puzzled as to why his flying powers don’t work. It transpired that big brother had convinced him that if he climbs to the top of the wardrobe he would be able to fly across the room.

But it’s not just the children we have to watch, in my family it’s also the Grandparents. When my eldest Son was about 3 years old he was playing bow and arrows with Grandad, when Grandad decided to stick one on the arrow suckers on his forehead, and run around being a dalek. Of course they both had a great time, until it was time to remove the arrow, it was stuck, after a lot of pulling, soaking and coaxing we managed to get it off. My Dad then spent the following week going to work with a big angry red mark in the middle of his forehead.

With Parents like mine what hope have my kids got of resembling anything like normal adults!!