"But I'm only a baby..."

Since moving home I have realised that I appear to be surrounded by small children and people expecting even smaller children.  As someone that doesn't relish the thought of how wonderfully natural giving birth is this is a strange concept to me.  What is even stranger is the fact that these children seem to like me.  They want to cuddle, to get kisses, to play and usually to cover me in their mess.  This is fine of course, I expect it, I just don't get why as I feel I am missing the maternal gene.

One thing I do understand is the concept of discipline.  The fact that children over a certain age are not allowed dummies, should not put shoes on the sofa, should definitely not pick the new puppy up by its tail or think it's ok to escape out the back gate at my Gran's house...forcing her to chase after them before they hit the brook that is a short distance away.

Children are remarkably good at ignoring what they don't want to hear though.  Also at turning the word no around on you...

"Caleb get out of the dogs bed." - "No."
"Marnie don't run you'll fall over." - "No." (Closely followed by Marnie falling over.  And then Caleb.  In quick succession.)
"Jay why don't you eat that dinner nicely." - "No." (Jay also likes to cover her eyes to make sure that you know she's going to try her best to pretend you're not even there with the spoon..."

My brother Caleb (3) on his first day at nursery school last week:

The newest line though, that all children seem to be picking up on, is "but I'm only a baby."  Commonly used when they don't want to walk, talk, listen, feed themselves or give back the 'bedtime' dummy that they stole.  Isn't it funny though that they are never a baby when it's time to go to nursery school, to a friends party, run along the street miles away from you ignorant to your shouting, or indeed when any 'grown up food' (in my moms case posh cake and expensive low fat yoghurt) is spied on the fridge.

I, however, have made a decision...I'm going to adopt this behaviour when in their company.  Next time they want me to read a story I'm going to say that I'm only a baby and therefore incapable of reading.  If they can turn no around on me then I'm definitely stealing this one.  After all, they're getting too old to believe that I can suddenly fall asleep immediately after finishing The Gruffalo for the third time in a row.