Banned from the iPad

After dinner. DD, with a but of a sore throat, has a throat sweet. “Sweet” is a bad word to use.

“Mummy, can I have a sweet?” asks DS.

“A Tic-Tac?” I say generously. He’s already had his after-dinner truck-load of marshmallows and other chewy stuff.

“Okay,” he says.

Yes exactly. Hug it, look after it but try to break it and you won’t see it for dust

I get the Tic-Tac (you think it’s mean to give only one? I was brought up on slices of Mars Bar) and take it to him. World War III explodes on the sofa. DS shoves my hand away.

“Noooo!” he screams. “Not Tic-Tac! I thought you said Kit-Kat! I want a Kit-Kat!”

“No Kit-Kat,” I say peacefully. “You asked for a sweet. Kit-Kat is not a sweet.”

DS, who is playing on the iPad (after-dinner treat, not status quo) slams his fist into the screen.

“Don’t do that!” I raise my voice. “Don’t break my iPad!” This is, after all, my iPad, not his. All my bookmarks are on it.

DS frisbees the iPad onto the sofa and karate-kicks the screen. I grab it back. “Right. That’s it.  You are banned from the iPad!”

You can imagine what happened next. I won’t glorify it by writing it down. Anyway, sometime later, DS sneaks onto my lap.

“I want to be nice now,” he says.

“Sure,” I say, bringing him in for a snuggle. He kisses my cheek. “Best mummy ever,” he says.

“Best boy,” I say.

There’s a pause. He kisses my cheek again, then: “I love you mummy.” Another pause. A flutter of tarantula lashes. “Am I still banned from the iPad?”

“I love you, too. Yes you are.”