At what age do children stop interpreting everything they hear completely literally? Or are mine just doing it to wind me up?

Yesterday morning, while waiting for school to open, I was having a “heated” discussion with Akra Jr about running out of sight of the playground with his younger brother following. “But mum,” he whined, “I’m not out the playground, this is the playground.” His feet were exactly on the boundary between the younger and older areas.

I gave in, resolving to stand nearer this end. “All right, but you don’t move beyond that point, okay?”

Akra Jr started searching the ground at his feet petulantly. Confused, I asked what he was doing and got the reply: “Where’s the point?”

Yes, I was wondering that myself actually.

Li’l Bhaji tends to go for a line of rather more cute mistaken meanings.

At Tumbletots recently they’ve been asking the children to “bunny hop” over one of the foam obstacles (keeping your hands in place on the top while swinging your legs over the obstacle).

Li’l Bhaji interprets this as in instruction to stand on the top, then jump off while waving his hands on his head like little bunny ears.

Bless.

Akra Jr is currently addicted to the Lazytown album – wherever we go in the car, we have to have that CD on permanent loop.

I don’t really mind, it’s a cheery, boppy sort of album and I quite enjoy it myself (but I strongly suspect that it’s driving Akra slowly insane).

There’s one song on there, though, that I love beyond reason. I think I should declare it my life anthem. It’s “Gizmo Guy” which is sung by the character Pixel. I strongly suspect the character is supposed to represent all the bad things about computer addiction, but Pixel is my hero (and I want access to all the gadgets he owns if someone could arrange that please?).

(I showed zip the following clip, and her response was “that is so you!”)

If you’re feeling the urge to sing along, here are the lyrics:

Have you got a donor card? Why not? Is it something you’ve been meaning to do and never got around to it?

If you haven’t got one, then this montage should be compulsory viewing. It was created by Misdee, the wife of Peter (who has been on the heart transplant list for the last two years).

The song on the montage is “Inside of You” by Alice Martineau.

Make an online slide show at onetruemedia.com

Please register for an organ donor card.

Nope, I’m not complaining about my mental state again, just thought I’d give you a heads up that on Tuesday (27th) this site will be down for a substantial portion of the day while the server gets some major upgrades.

My email will also be affected, so I’m not ignoring you and nothing disastrous has gone wrong!

I’m going to try and control the shakes, isolation and other unpleasant withdrawal symptoms best I can…

Something arrived in the post yesterday that gave me lots of childish excitement – the Moo MiniCards I ordered.

For those who don’t know what minicards are, they’re a half-sized business card – you can use images directly from your Flickr account, set up the crop you want and then you have six lines of freeform text on the back – contact details or whatever you want, really. I had a terrible job working out which images I wanted and ended up with 25 different designs and as a result, not many repeats.

I bought them because Akra had received some of the free ones a while back and they really are rather gorgeous. I thought they’d be handy for internet meets, or to hand out if I got any queries photographing in public. Of course, the reality is they are so lovely (I keep taking them out the box, admiring my handiwork and saying “my precioussssssss”…), I’m rather loathe to give them away.

I don’t have to give them away, do I?

It’s not really been a good week, I’ve not been really feeling myself.

Okay, that’s an understatement. I’ve been feeling blue and grumpy. The glass is definitely half empty. I’ve been snippy, moody, and short-tempered. I’ve had too much on my plate so I’ve responded by being on active work avoidance and feel completely demotivated.

I know a lot of this would be “cured” by ordering myself to bed earlier and getting a decent night’s sleep. It just hasn’t happened yet.

I’m finding myself more and more living by my new motto, suitable for all occasions: Bollocks to it.

Ultra-depressing news publishing studies with a rather tenuous grasp of science? Bollocks to it.

Take the effort to sign a couple of petitions or write to your local labour MP only to get a long email from our Tone saying thank you very much, we are listening and do care but we’re going to do what we want to regardless? Bollocks to it.

Go to a car park, have the exact change needed for a two hour ticket only to have the machine swallow the money without spitting out any paper? Bollocks to it.

Have the washing machine break down again in the same month that you already spent £165 to repair it? Shittyfuckingbuggerybollocks to it.

Really I should have a solution to it all by the end of this blog post, or at least a witty one-liner to leave you with. But I don’t have one. Oh, bollo… you get the idea… [Publish]

Has it really been almost a week since I last blogged? How did that happen?

Unfortunately, I seem to have hit a really busy time at the moment, with just about everything on my to do list being urgent. So I shall just leave you with the following, sent to us by my mother-in-law:

The ability to make and understand puns is the highest level of language development.

Here are the ten first place winners in the International Pun Contest:

1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons.
   The stewardess looks at him and says, “I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.”
2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall.
   The one turns to the other and says “Dam!”
3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft.
   Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.
4. Two hydrogen atoms meet.
   One says “I’ve lost my electron.”
   The other says “Are you sure?”
   The first replies “Yes, I’m positive.”
5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal?
   His goal: transcend dental medication.
6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories.
   After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse.
   “But why?”, they asked, as they moved off.
   “Because,” he said,” I can’t stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.”
7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption.
   One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named “Ahmal.”
   The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him “Juan. ”
   Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother.
   Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal.
   Her husband responds, “They’re twins! If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Ahmal.”
8. A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds.
   Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair.
   He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not.
   He went back and begged the friars to close.
   They ignored him.
   So, the rival florist hired Hugh McTaggert the roughest and most vicious thug in town to “persuade” them to close.
   Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he’d be back if they didn’t close up shop.
   Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.
9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet.
   He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath.
   This made him a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
10. And finally, there was the person who posted ten different puns to her blog, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make her readers laugh.
    No pun in ten did.

I’ve just noticed (in the hunt for a recipe) that Annabel Karmel is launching a new range of ready meals in conjunction with Sainsburys under the Eat Fussy label.

For those who don’t know who Annabel Karmel is, she is a well-known cookbook author who shamed thousands of UK mothers into making their babies’ and children’s food from scratch.

Recommended by health visitors and parents alike, her recipes (while some tending to the fussy side and often requiring decorative flourishes) have coaxed many a fussy eater into the tastes of real fresh food and lured parents away from relying on expensive and nutrient-poor jars and pre-prepared food. She encouraged us that yes, we do have the time and the skills to do it properly.

So, to launch a range of ready meals seems somewhat … hypocritical, to say the least. While the ingredients and information on the range looks good (and I’ll be honest, we’ll probably end up trying at least one at some point in the future in an emergency), I do feel bizarrely let down by Ms Karmel. And the chicken rissoles we had this evening (in normal burger shapes, not teddies as recommended) were delicious but tainted.

Maybe we should all just give in and surrender every meal to Captain Birdseye?

You know, every time I really dread the holidays. How on earth will I keep them entertained? How on earth will I stay sane without the familiar routines of the school drop off and pick up and all the other activities we do in a normal week?

Every time, I end up surprising myself that it’s actually not that bad.

Maybe, it’s the memory of having to entertain a younger Akra Jr when he was still an only child and needed me to entertain him every second of the day. These days, the two boys seem to sort out their own entertainment mostly, leaving me to interject with the fun stuff occasionally when I have the inspiration and energy to do so.

Today I let them loose in the garden for the morning and stood out there with them (cup of tea in hand). I fully expected to be arranging some games to break the tedium, but other than a quick kick around of a football (which Li’l Bhaji soon lost interest in) I mostly watched them create a wonderfully elaborate game of post delivery using their playhouse and ride on cars. I was mostly surplus to requirements.

Other than that, I have sat down with them to compile a list of all the fun things they want to do in the week (they came up with most of the ideas and NOT ONE involves spending money – how cool is that?!), played a board game with Akra Jr, been on hand to chat and joke as required and then in the afternoon they begged to watch Cars for the sixty billionth time. What the hell – it’s the holidays.

It’s been really nice and relaxed and I think I’ve worked out what the difference is – Li’l Bhaji has got to the age where he can really contribute to the fun, and both children have great complementary personalities: Li’l Bhaji has the talent and enthusiasm for imaginative play that Akra Jr is catching, and Akra Jr is sorting out the practicalities “we can use this”.

Akra Jr’s previous lack of interest in roleplay-type activities has concerned me in the past, but with the help of his brother he seems to have easily caught up. Long may it continue.

I’m still looking forward to term starting again, though!

I’ve been told off by a couple of people for not reporting on the snowfall in the West Midlands (especially as it seems like the Midlands got the worst of it).

Truth be told, I grew up in the Peak District of Derbyshire and I really can’t see the fuss about a bit of snow. I mean, the schools all closed down here and everything! It’s only a few inches deep.

I certainly remember digging our way out of the house when it snowed in my childhood. As long as the drifts hadn’t blocked the front door you went to school. AND there were grit bins everywhere – I have yet to see a grit bin around here so no wonder everything grinds to a halt.

So, I hadn’t written about the snow simply because I didn’t realise it was that big a deal, sorry! I did use it as an excuse to go nuts with the camera though, so feel free to wander over to my Flickr pages to see some of the better ones.

I’ve also been rather busy, due to the aforementioned closure of schools – right before half term too! Oh, and we made a snowman (a pretty damn good one, even if I say so myself… and Akra did most of the work, I just supplied the carrot).

I’m already going stir crazy, and they have all of next week off too…. whimper.