What have I done with my pocketses?

After Mummy got him dressed this morning, Baby Brother played quite happily for a few minutes. To his delight, he found a penny on the floor. But seconds later he noticed something which put him in great perplexity. He went running to the fount of all wisdom. But she was in the bathroom, so he had to make do with Daddy.

Patting his shorts, and lifting up his tee-shirt, Baby Brother really did look most concerned.

“Where have my pockets gone, Daddy?”, he asked.

Thus it fell to Daddy to explain that, since pockets are not known for spontaneously detaching themselves from garments, it was most likely that Mummy had dressed him in shorts without pockets that morning. And, clever Daddy that he is, he guessed at the question behind the question, and suggested a solution.

“Why don’t you put that penny in your money box instead?”

Not such an Open Mic

Baby brother was playing with a little friend today. Little friend had a microphone – a real microphone, though not plugged in – and was singing away to himself and, no doubt, an adoring crowd.

Tiring of that game, little friend put the microphone down and moved on to something else. So baby brother seized his chance. He picked up the mic, and began to croon.

But his playmate was having none of it. He rushed across the room and grabbed the microphone back.

Baby brother just looked at him scornfully.

“Doesn’t work anyway”, he said.

Up the creek without batteries

Little brother (two next month – can you believe it?) was piloting a ship in the park the other day. Mummy and I were the passengers. I don’t know where he was taking us, but it was certainly via the scenic route.

“Are we there yet?”, I asked him.

“No, sorry. Run out of batteries. Need new ones”

He jumped out of the ship and tinkered around with something at the back.

“That’s better”, he said, as he scrambled back on board. Some commentary followed, something about fishes swimming around us. Then finally, the news I’d been waiting for.

“We’re here!”, he announced.

“Well,” I remarked to Mummy as we jumped down from the boat and headed for the swings, “he’s quite a one for his imagination.”

Taking the other biscuit

A friend of ours held out a biscuit to Little Brother yesterday, a Malted Milk. In ordinary circumstances he would have received it with much rejoicing.

Not this time.

His beady eye had spotted, on the plate in her other hand, a Party Ring, blue and yellow icing glistening glossily.

“No, tank ooo”, he said. Then, pointing, “Dat one!”

Toddler mum?

A new cousin joined the family the other day (a cousin of some degree, and some number of places removed - I can never work these things out with my large family).

I was looking at his first photo with Mummy when she said,

"Do you think you'd like one of those?"

I gave it a few seconds consideration, and then asked

"Would it cry?"

"I expect so," Mummy said. "All babies cry."

I didn't like the sound of that. It upsets me to hear other babies being upset.

"I think it would be a better idea", I said, "if it did crying in tears, not noises. Just tears, " I repeated, to make my point clear. I was thinking of the new baby that I won at a Fete the other day by guessing its birthday. It sets an example that I think all babies everywhere should follow, by demonstrating its feeling just with watering eyes, and not with all that unnecessary howling.

Later on I had another thought, and told Mummy to put an end to the matter.

"Mummy, I can't have a baby until I get married."

The magic ingredient

It's that time of year again. The time when, with Christmas still ridiculously far into the future, good housewives suddenly get the urge to start baking the Christmas Cake. So Mummy and I, good housewives that we are, set off for the supermarket.

Into the trolley went the usual currants, cherries, candied peel, along with the flour and eggs and all the other things that I usually add to the mixture by the bag-full.

But I was sure there was something missing. I scanned the shelves, but couldn't see it.

"Mummy, don't we need Christmas for the Christmas cake?"

Bath Time

A regular part of my evening routine is a bath. I like baths. I can teach Dora and Boots how to swim. I can squirt daddy with my Sea horse water pistol. I can scribble a masterpiece on the side of the bath with my bath crayons. But what I can't do is avoid having my hair washed.

"Don't I have to have my hair washed tonight?", I ask hopefully, every night without fail. Six nights out of seven I get the hoped for reply. But on that other night, often, mysteriously, after I have been swimming, Mummy directs a glance at Daddy and says "I'm afraid you do".

Then it begins. Hair drenched; shampoo lathered in; then soap washed out of my hair and into my eyes. I've tried watching my dollies as I wash their hair, to see how they can remain stoical in the face of the ordeal. They manage it even with their eyes open. I don't see how it can be done.

And so from the moment Mummy begins, to the moment Daddy wraps my head in the towel I keep up a constant chorus of "Is it finished yet? Is it finished yet? Is it finished yet?"

And it seems to be working. Hair washing has become noticeably quicker now that I've learnt that the way to Mummy's heart-strings is through her ears.

I've been up to London to visit the Queen

A couple of weeks ago, Daddy went up to London on business (I thought I'd write that, to make him feel important when he reads it!). Mummy and I tagged along in his suitcase.

Whilst he worked, we played. We took in Saint Paul's cathedral, the Millenium bridge (which didn't bounce nearly enough), the London Eye, and then, after a mad dash accross Westminster bridge (and a wrong turn into Downing Street), the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

Mummy overheard a tour guide telling his crowd that "this was the absolute best spot to see it all from". So Mummy pushed me in there quick. And we had a lot to see. HM was recieving VIPs that day, and they arrived by golden coach (I checked for telltale pumpkin leaves sprouting from the top) topped with a full compliment of footmen.

"That's how you get to see the Queen, Sophie", Mummy said to me. "You have to be important and go in a coach."

"No Mummy, I'll just go and knock on the door", I replied with the confidence of one who always has time for visitors.

"I don't think she'd answer", said Mummy.

"Yes she would", said I, undaunted. "I'll just go round the back!"

Sharing with Mummy

Granny is a pushover. I only have to look in the direction of Greggs the Bakers in town, and she buys me a cake. Or sometimes a biscuit, as she did the other day when I went shopping with her an Mummy.

Only being a nibble-of-the-corners hungry, I soon handed the chewed biscuit to Mummy, who looked at it hungrily. Anybody would think I sometimes forgot to leave bits on my plate after meals for her. I didn't see what she did with it, but later on, I began to feel peckish again.

"Mummy, Bic-Bic, please", I said, being careful of my manners.

"Mummy's eaten all the Biscuit. You said you didn't want it." I hadn't said that at all. Mummy just takes advantage of my uncertain pronunciation when it suits her.

What to do? Then I thought of the Mummy penguins I read about with Daddy in his animal book.

"Spit it out then", I said.

Breakfast time is story time

You wouldn't have thought there was much scope for the imagination in a bowl of breakfast cereal would you?

Think again.

Meet Sophie and Susie. There they are in the picture, between my fingers: they were my friends for the morning, until the milk made them too soggy, and they went squishy. They are rice crispies.

I told Daddy all about them, whilst I was eating the other crispies. Then Sophie and Susie went for a ride on the Spoonmobile.

Susie even bounced around the edge of my bowl, and played "bouncy ball, catch" with Sophie.