Helter Skelter: Sharing your passion with your kids

What do Enid Blyton's The Enchanted Wood and The Beatles' Helter Skelter have in common? Read on and ye shall see...

One of the greatest gifts you can give your children is sharing your passions. My parents gave me a love of books, music, travel and wine and I am now passing the first two on to my own children. I will move onto travel soon but shall save the wine until much later.

For Christmas the Chief was given two of my favourite childhood books: The Enchanted Wood and The Magic Faraway Tree. We've been reading them together. I am actually quite amazed that a 4 year old can sit and listen to a book that has chapters and very few pictures but she does. It took her a while to get that we read all of one before starting on the next though.

Did you ever read those books? I'd forgotten a lot of the details. I could only remember the pop cakes and toffee. I guess that's another thing my parents shared with me that I'm now sharing with my kids: a love of food. Tonight we read the chapter about the funny old saucepan man who causes so much clanging and banging with his saucepans that he doesn't always hear correctly. Reminded me very much of The Fawlty Towers episode, Communication Breakdown, which I'm sure I'll share with my kids in due course.

We got to a section in the book that read: "The saucepan man ran helter skelter to the hole..." when suddenly the Chief burst out with "Helter Skelter, helter skelter", her rendition of The Beatles' classic. And I looked at her proudly and thought, "that's my girl" as I'm sure my dad will think when he reads this.

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I would just like to add that I don't talk about Happy One much but he is just adorable at the moment. He's a stubborn creature (can't think where he gets that from Grandad, or more likely Grandpa!) with a love of cake (once again, where did he get that from, chaps?) and cars (Grandad); he sleeps in the car and with a car. His language is maturing every day and he is starting to formulate two and three word sentences. How can you resist, "cuddo-mummy, wanna cuddow mummy"? Which, of course means "cuddle". So sweet. Tonight he told Map Man, "I wan nana-weet", meaning banana and weetbix (weetabix). He cries when he doesn't get his own way and if that doesn't work he screams, throws things, hits, pushes, lies on the floor and kicks his legs and slithers along on his back like a snake. If you have hold of him at the time he proceeds with a back arch a yogi would be envious of, doubling over and out of your arms. He never wants to eat dinner but he's always up for cake, cereal or egg. If we manage to give him something he likes he'll ask for "more" regardless of whether he actually wants to eat more. He gives the loveliest cuddles and kisses and follows the Chief around like a little puppy dog at times. And she is such the big sister with him, taking his hand and leading him around. He also has violent tendencies, which worry me, and loves to lounge in his rocking chair with his milk in his hand like an old man. He is impossible to take photos of as he always runs around the back of the camera to have a look just as I'm pressing the button. Here are some pics I took of them at Underwater World this afternoon.

And to wrap up I thought you'd be interested to know I just found my laptop mouse in the bathroom, courtesy of Happy.


Well do you, don't you want me to love you....

Hey! I just wrote a whole post without even mentioning diabetes.

Doh!