Helping children discern what is good and bad and how there are occurrences when it's perhaps OK to be a little bad is really very hard.  

In fact, if I'm honest, our seven year old was right in saying that there are differing degrees of bad (if not necessarily differing degrees of evil).

We try and find our way by encouraging honesty, but explaining on the, luckily, rare occasion that one of us has to tell a white lie why we are doing so.

Our daughter has a tea fetish.

I can pinpoint exactly when it started.  Her favourite Dutch Uncle was visiting.  He hates coffee and only drinks tea.  So she, as a precocious two year old, decided the she would like some too.  She hasn't looked back!

Yesterday I took our daughter to a birthday party at our local Village Hall.  The experience made me reflect on a number of the birthday parties I have attended over the last few months with her.  

As she is three, most of the parties we are attending are either for children turning three or four.  Toddler birthday parties are a strange thing.  The children are not really old enough to interact in organised games and tend in my experience at least, to play around rather than with one another.

I didn’t really know what Beavers were, assuming that, like me, our son would start as a Cub Scout.  However, Beavers are now the starting level for the scout movement and it was with them he started his time in scouting a couple of years ago.

We have a Dutch friend who sends his son along under sufferance, mumbling constantly about how there are similarities between Beavers and paramilitary organisations in Fascist dictatorships.  “The Hitler Youth started out like this!” 

I’m not sure the Hitler Youth ever behaved like our Beavers.  They’re way too chaotic for that.  I can best describe the group as being akin to the Lord of the Flies, with nicer uniforms and overseen by the WI.

We travelled home from our holiday yesterday. Three and a half hours on a plane with 3 year old and 7 year old.  It's the bit of any holiday I dread, the embarrassment potential is off the scale, as are the chances of meltdowns, tantrums and toilet emergencies.  

And that's just from J!

Yesterday was no exception.  

The reaction to us as a same sex couple with children differs.  Almost universally it isn’t negative.  Odd statement, I know, but what I mean is that at worst it’s neutral; questioning sometimes, but very rarely hostile.

The majority are actually positive and supportive.  Smiling encouragement at the silliness often needed to distract our children in otherwise stressful situations.

One of the more entertaining things to do on holiday is to visit the mini disco.  Never heard of that?  Let me explain.

Mini disco is the evening entertainment put on by holiday hotels, particularly in Spain, where the children’s entertainers put on a half an hour’s disco for kids staying with them.  The songs are usually as polyglot as the audience and, with the exception of the ‘Birdie Song’ and ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,’ are of the type only ever heard on holiday.

The cleanliness of my car is a point of constant contention between J and I.  Not a major one, just something that he can use to berate me with when he wants to score points.

The point being that I find it almost impossible to keep the car clean carrying the children about as I do.

7yo returned home from Beaver Cubs the other evening carrying a pile of what looked like bit of paper.

"What's all that?" I asked.

"Valentines Presents for <girl X>"

"Oh", I replied looking askance.  To be honest, the pile of paper didn't look too promising as a Valentine's gift for the latest object of his affection.

It's dark.  It's quiet.  We're sleeping soundly.

And then you hear the thunder of tiny feet on the landing.  Snuffly wailing and smothered sobs ensue.  3yo's standing next to my side of the bed, poking me gently.

"Daddy, I can't find my dummy"