things I am realising...

1. Boys are a totally strange species (but lots of fun!). I thought I could play 'boys' games, I built a road for the cars to race around, but they are not content with racing the cars around, they have to crash the cars. I thought we could play hospitals but if you so much as lie on the floor for a minute you may (will) get jumped on. After being squirted with the waterpistol being played with in the bathroom (whilst sitting on the computer in the lounge), the next night we thought we would not risk getting wet and shut them in to squirt each other to their hearts content, only to see them trying to aim through the crack under the door (let's just say this didn't go down too well...)

2. They are no longer little boys (sort of anyway..) Joshua is now torn between the beloved Fireman Sam and playing with cars (as in the ones from the film Cars), he would rather play with lego than duplo (much to Tom's annoyance) and takes himself to the bathroom (but comes out again holding his bottom clothes as they are still harder to put back on than take off)

3. There will be differences growing up in Africa than in England, the boys will learn to speak 'ship' language, they forget what some of our favourite foods are like or even called, they don't know what the man in the story is wearing (scarf, gloves) but today we also read a story about where chocolate comes from. The little girl wanted to have a chocolate tree in her garden and is told by her brother they grow in Africa, and yes my friends they do, Tom was excited that we were reading about something that we saw only a couple of weeks ago! And don't forget while other children can name TV characters or footballers we can name every type of vessel that passes our windows, which for the strange species amongst us remains to be exciting stuff.

Sarah.