Don't do as I do

Parenthood forces one to explore the outer reaches of one's imagination and creative abilities.

Note to non-parents: if you think a train set and some building blocks and fifteen different types of toy car and a pretend tea set and half a dozen flashy, battery-driven gadget-y toys are going to cut the mustard for longer than four minutes in every hour, you are very much mistaken.

And so it was that I resorted to flinging The Son's and The Daughter's toy dolls* up in the air until their moulded plastic heads hit the ceiling. As they did so, I offered up an exclamation of 'boink!'.

This was (excuse the pun) a big hit. Much hysterical laughter and repeated cries of 'Again! Again!'.

Their appetite for this wondrous new game seemed insatiable.

But suddenly, I felt the need to bring it to an end. These, after all, were the dolls I had bought in the vain hope that they would help bring out the nurturing side of my children. ('Aw? Is your baby crying? Better give her/him a cuddle! Oooh! Has (s)he done a wee-wee? Shall we change her/his nappy?')

Two little bewildered faces looked up at me.

'Now, see. This isn't what we'd do with a real baby.' [At this point, I invited them both to give their babies a much-deserved cuddle.] 'We don't throw real babies, now, do we?'

Silence.

'But you know that, right?'

The wall clock went tick tock tick tock tick. Brows furrowed confusedly for the briefest of seconds before two little doll-laden hands stretched out towards mine:

'Again! Again!'

* no gender stereotyping in this family