Don’t try this at home

Your mission, should you care to take it………is to herd three children from the school yard [translation = playground] to the car parked by the curbside at a distance of a mere 50 yards from where you currently stand?

Recipe – take two people, one adult and one child. Ready? Stand together so that as much of your body is in physical contact with the other. [translation = it doesn’t matter whether you’re front to back, back to back etc.] This is your starting position. Set? [translation = get ready] It is now the smaller person’s duty to rotate around the larger body, whilst remaining in physical contact at high speed. Go! The bigger person must now walk towards the car whilst the other continues to rotate.

The smaller person must move their feet with greater agility to avoid entanglement. [translation = a bit like French skipping] Additionally the smaller person should repeat a phrase of three words continuously, preferably rhyming, at just the right pitch and at 50 decibels in order to ensure that the adult brain is incapable of functioning.

Now, would be the ideal time for the small person to stick their head under the upper garment of the adult such that flabby female flesh is exposed to those who look on bewildered. It will not help to yell ‘proprioceptive input’ at the aforementioned audience at this time. [translation = or any other time come to think of it]
Continue thusly in the general direction of the car.

Additional garnish – choose from the following [wisely] –
Hold the hand of the child that falls down a lot.
Ensure that you haven’t left the third one behind.
Be aware of personal belongings, yours and theirs.
Add crowd.
One pinch of noise [wide choice available to tune into or out of]
A smattering of well wishing comments from friends.
Traffic safety persons [with whistles]

Yes, it is ‘oh so cute’ when they are two, maybe three, but at six and a half, the general public do not vote this way. They register deviant and give a wide berth to the spectacle.


Repeat as necessary, [translation = daily] until phase passes or a suitable ‘intervention’ can be manufactured.


It would probably be wrong for the adult to break free at this point and run away, right?
[translation = where is a trampoline when you need one?
Why isn’t there a swimming pool there instead of a storm drain?
Why didn’t I bring his weighted vest?
Don’t you dare carry him!]

Early days 1 – battle of the sexes

I had two girls. I knew I could do girls, but as a raging feminist, I was doubtful whether I could manage boys. After a few months of my pregnancy, I suspected that rather than being ‘with child’ I was ‘with boy.’ I found that my favourite staple food, bananas, had turned to poison. I started to seriously consider what I would do if the bump was born a boy?

I would teach him to cook and darn socks. I would ensure that he was in touch with his inner child and his feminine side. I would make him into the perfect mate. What were you supposed to do with boys? Everyone, just everyone always said how different boys were. I was worried.

When the first boy arrived I liked him a great deal. He was cuddly and quiet, a peaceful adorable baby, except if you put him down. He had been installed with a motion detector in his bottom. As long as he was vertical and attached, life was bliss. So the difference between boys and girls wasn’t that great, possibly even preferable. It looked as if I was going to be able to do boys after all!


By the time the next boy came along I discovered another difference between girls and boys. Boys did not like push chairs. [translation = strollers] That was o.k. too. I put the little guy in one of those modern contraptions that straps the baby to your chest and carried the bigger one, both vertical, both quiet.

Of course they talked late, but boys do, don’t they, everyone knows that. It was only much much later that I began to understand something called deep proprioceptive input. [translation – squishing a child helps them become more grounded. It is calming and reassuring which helps them feel safer too] It was later still that the connection between autism and sensory integration began to make sense.


In the meantime, whilst I may look like a stick insect, I have the upper body strength of a building contractor, but that’s what happens if you carry two small people until they reach 45 and 59 lbs respectively.