Drenched

As we walked the Boy Wonder back to the car after collecting him from school I told him that the Baby Brother had gone off with Mummy and Daddy to have his first set of injections, but he looked a little bemused so I explained further what I was talking about. "Normally," came the reply, "we call those 'jabs'." "Oh OK. Jabs, then." "Yes, jabs. We go and get them from the jab shop." "Jab shop??" "Yes," he said. "It's a bit complicated, but there's a paddling pool there as well." "A paddling pool? Really???" "Yes. People don't always want to go in the paddling pool, but they can if they like."

By this time we were back in the car. I was driving and R was sitting in the back with B, so I mostly left it to Granddad to steer the conversation. The Boy was in chatty form though and didn't need much prompting, and occasionally R and I would share a grin in the driving mirror as we were treated to a string of insights into a three-year old's world view. Later when I told L about the jab shop with the paddling pool, she laughed and explained that B's last vaccinations were done at the local pharmacy, and that it's now a bit of a nightmare to get him through the door for any reason, however innocent and unrelated to hypodermic needles. Paddling pool though?? "Well," she said, "they do have a sort of circular desk thing... and I suppose it does look a bit like a paddling pool, if...." If you're three years old, with a vivid imagination, I suppose. Or as L said, maybe he had a dream about it afterwards, and he's now remembering that as the reality.

After lunch R and I took the Boy to the park, where we had a great time, right up until the heavens opened and we all got absolutely drenched. Back at home we asked what B wanted to do, and he chose a game of hide and seek - which turned out to involve me going and sitting quietly in the dining room with a cup of tea until they called that they were ready, and then going into the playroom and having to find R and B, who were always sitting in exactly the same place on the sofa with a variety of rugs and cushions piled on top of them. It was genuinely funny (R told me afterwards that the Boy was snorting with suppressed laughter each time they were waiting for me to come in), and if I'd thought of it at the time I'd have taken in my camera and memorialised the ridiculous sight with a photo.