Ben is three

Monday was Ben's birthday, and this year he definitely knows what it's all about. He opened his presents in less than four minutes and wanted me to put them together, but as it was a school day this was somewhat impossible.

As anyone who has anything to do with children will know, there is a corresponding and inverse relationship between the time it takes to unnwrap and build a toy and the time it takes for the child to dismantle it and distribute the components across the house.

The dismay I felt upon opening Ben's new toy farm was crushing. It was totally flatpacked and it took more time to put together than a real farm would have done. Afterwards I wrestled the farm animals free of their plastic-coated wire bondage and finally placed them into the pastoral surroundings of the wooden farm. This is the Before shot, the fruit of my entire afternoon:



And this is the After shot, the fruit of Hurrican Ben being home for less than five minutes.




To be fair, the stable remained in the same place.



Although we had no party this year (thereby reserving my sanity for a little more time at least) we did have a lovely time, and Ben looked about as thrilled as any child could possibly look when he saw his cake...





...I found it so hard to tear him away from his fun at bedtime! It was nothing to do with him needing a rest - no; the toys all needed re-gathering, re-building and rearranging again and the house pretty much needed razing to the ground to get it back to anything approaching normality.

So true, that saying on my sage fridge magnet:

Cleaning a house while the kids are still growing
Is like shovelling snow when it's still snowing.