Holiday "madness"

It's the holidays! Yeah. But not for grown-ups. Boo. How did that happen? Aren't we adults supposed to be in control [at least loosely speaking? I kissed goodbye to any sense of control after the third one was born]. Anyway, I have been plodding on with my work while the children have been being entertained. Daughter two has been making dough for some reason and painting it black. Again, don't ask me. She and daughter three have been going on "adventures". Daughter one has been making sardonic comments about "old people music". Daughter two is in the choir and learning some songs for a big performance in March. They include the Monkees. This, apparently, is "old people music". I told her that old people music is young people music but when it was the original version. She was not impressed.

I emerged from trying to get the baby to sleep the other night to find daughters one and two in the bath discussing old people music. Suddenly the conversation veered in a strange direction. I could hear daughter one saying "If you add 13 to 2x and then take away five, what is the original value of x". She was asking daughter two, who is not renowned for her love of maths. [Indeed she made a giant teddy bear mural out of her maths multiplication cards]. "I think you may be asking the wrong person," I ventured. Daughter two volunteered three, off the top of her head. "Wrong," said daughter one. I started quizzing her about volcanoes, which she is studying now. Very appropriately since her uncle is still in the midst of the Chilean volcanic explosion which began last May. I asked a question about Pompeii. "That was in ancient times," I said. "Like when you were a child?" asked daughter two. "Even more ancient," I replied.

Meanwhile, daughter three is on a sleepover high. She has worked out that her friends, being just six, are unlikely to come for a sleepover any time soon. So, she has been drawing up invitations for all daughter one's friends who came at the weekend. They are cordially invited to daughter three's sleepover next May. They will be doing absolutely everything that they did at daughter one's sleepover, naturally.

The  kittens are also getting in on the act and have taken to surfing round the room on the rug. We have had to hide the xmas tree in the office as they find the tinsel irresistible. They have indeed picked the xmas decorations off the wall in the living room. I think they are looking for the partridge in a pear tree.