sometimes parenting involves just too much effort

a few years back, andrew had an accident in which bones in the outsides of both of his hands were broken. as a result, ordinary tasks involving certain hand movements can cause him a lot of pain.

in a related story, amelia has recently embarked on a passionate love affair with walnuts, which she refers to as WARM-NUTS and wants them opened day and night(as you can imagine, andrew goes to great lengths to get her to ask for these, small minds and easy amusement etc etc). because we have marble floors and no nutcrackers, my way of opening the things is to toss them violently on the floor where they shatter to the great satisfaction of amelia who exclaims 'oh MUMMY' as she dashes off to gather the edible bits.

andrew has a slightly different method - bashing them against the tiles on the kitchen walls. as i discovered a few days back when trying this for my self, his method comes with its very own sound accompaniment.

as i whacked the tough (grown on a bio-farm, seriously hard skinned) old things against the wall, amelia started up a strange chant of (edited for the eyes of the more tender reader) 'f . . . it, f . . . it, f . . . it'. apparently, on just one occasion, andrew hurt his hand rather badly when cracking some warm-nuts , and responded verbally without remembering what was standing right next to him soaking it all up, the result being that she now uses that phrase every time a warm-nut is whammed into wall or floor.

oooops.