In which we definitely don’t call The Boys stupid…

I know that, strictly speaking, children are not stupid. They are inexperienced, naïve, still learning about the world. They just haven’t been exposed to the information, interactions and context that enables them to make the right choices and understand cause and effect. I do know this. I get it.

But, fuck me, it does look a lot like stupidity sometimes.

For example, over Christmas when one of The Boys chose, inexplicably, to swallow a metal Geomag ball. After checking he was not choking and that the ball wasn’t toxic, I eventually calmed down, stopped flapping, swigged gin and set about scaring the life out of the little bugger with What Might Have Been. Much graphic description of things being cut out of tummies with massive knives etc.

I realise this may seem harsh. After all, three-year olds shove things in their mouths all the time, don’t they? They don’t know any better.

Except it wasn’t the Little One. It was the Big One. Who is SIX AND A FUCKING HALF. (Yes, I know that’s still a very small boy, but honestly, swallowing a marble. Jesus.)

Fortunately the whole situation came to a happy conclusion when the object in question appeared in the toilet a few days later. Less fortunately, the Big One found this so hilarious that I genuinely cannot be sure he won’t do again just because he wants to shit marbles.

For example, the Little One decided to use his own head as a railway track. This resulted in the immortal phrase “Mummy, my head won’t come off this train”. No, it wouldn’t. Because he’d had the train running at the time and a huge chunk of his hair was now an integral part of the locomotive in question (Victor, for the more curious Thomas the Tank Engine fans. One of the more attractive trains to my mind. Just me? Fair enough.) It clearly was not going to be persuaded to move, even after the removal of a coupling rod and some top notch silent swearing. Scissors were deployed, the Little One wandered off with a new tufty bit, and Victor returned to the train box where the hair remains trapped in his wheels as a constant reminder of the Little One’s abuse of him.

For the time being I shall continue to consider these actions to be the work of daft young boys, and assume that one day their IQs will exceed that of the average slipper…though the fact that the Little One was once found sweeping the surface of the pond with a broom, and the Big One is regularly outwitted by his own trousers suggests that day isn’t coming any time soon.