A short note on the contrariness of children

My husband has been hard at work the last couple of weeks and hasn't been making it home in time for bath and bed. I must admit I'm finding it hard going after several weeks of him being around a fair bit. It culminated on Thursday evening in a bit of a set-to at bath time (caused by the bigger two trying to poke each other's bottoms, something I probably have an irrational dislike of). Once everyone was out the bath I took myself off downstairs for a couple of minutes' timeout and left three boys clutching the stair gate and W wailing 'I want my daddy'. Once I returned in a slightly more mature frame of mind, they grudgingly let me read them their stories and tuck them in. There was no mention of their favourite thing of today, something which has become a bit of a tradition in the family and T in particular likes to share every night.

The following day Mark was home so I left them to it at bath time and went to have a shower. 15 minutes of separation later and I end up with three small boys lined up outside my bathroom door and the older two demanding I read their stories tonight!

We did a bit of furniture rearranging last weekend to make space for the rocker they are getting for Christmas. I didn't manage to cull as much from the toy box as I had hoped - when it comes to actually getting rid of things my hoarding genes get the better of me and I can't bring myself to do it. But I did shift the toy box upstairs as they rarely look in it. Since moving it, they've had toys out of it every day this week that haven't been played with for months! It is funny how sometimes a change in presentation can spark something in their imagination or interest again, and so far they haven't noticed the absence of the few things I did get rid of!