Whodunnit?

Dragon's Den here I come....

In fact, I'm not sure I should be writing about my most recent stroke of genuis while I'm on hold to the Intellectual Property Office helpline.

My proposal is to create a simple testing kit, a bit like a pregnancy test, however it will utilise multiple colour-coding to present results.

It's going to be costly to produce initially as DNA technology will be involved in the process of creating the testing formula.

But, my goodness me, it will sell like hot cakes.  There's not a woman in the land who won't rush out and buy one as soon as they hit the shelves.

The instructions will read thus:

Remove plastic wrapper and dispose of responsibly.

(The kit is made from 100% recycled materials).

Holding the white plastic end of the stick, firmly rub the other end on the test area.

Ensure the end is fully coated.

Wait five minutes.  The tip will gradually change colour.

Bingo!  Your culprit will be revealed. For example, let's say blue is for husband, red for son no.1, green for son no. 2 and orange for visitors etc.

Poirot-like, you can waltz into the front room and declare: "Ha, ha, now I know exactly who has been splashing their wee around the toilet seat and carpet!"

The Dip-stick (working title) instructions will have small print:

Dip-stick does not accept responsibility for matrimonial disharmony, sweets-withdrawal-style punishments or violence which may ensue following the testing procedure.

Well, what a great idea all you ladies are thinking (yes, I'm stereotyping, so shoot me (no, not you Daniel, put the Nerf gun down).  Dip-stick will put an end to the following scenario:

Wife: "Who has wee'd on the toilet seat and the carpet?"
Husband: "Not me."
Son no 1: "Not me."
Son no 2: "Not me."

By the way, the numbering of my children is purely chronological, not favouritism.

But as E. Nesbit said in The Railway Children:  "Of course, mothers never have favourites, but if their mother had had a favourite, it might have been Roberta".

Anyway, I've banged on about the very different forms of love we feel for our children in a previous blog so I won't repeat myself.  Go and read it!

I've leave you with another of my favourite 'tales from Teddy', voiced just this week.

"Mum, if we knocked down our conservatory, would you get your money back for it?"

You couldn't write this stuff.

Oh go on, you know you want another.....this is yesterday's,  hot off the press.

"Mum, you know how sometimes the weeks seem to fly by and then other weeks seem to go slower?"
"Yes Teddy, that's true and very observant, good boy."
"Well, do you think different countries take it in turns having weeks that go slow or fast?"

I don't know about other countries, but apparently next week is due to fly by, with mild temperatures and showers, on Planet Ted.

OCD, I have thoughts on that as well as males with bad aims, but more of that for my next blog....

Note to new product researchers at Betterware or Lakeland, please contact me on my landline.

Say what you mean, and mean what you say....

....that's my motto.

I have other mottos, many, many other mottos, but 'say what you mean, and mean what you say' is today's 'theme'.  (Yes, OK, thank you for pointing out there isn't usually a 'theme' and I just ramble from one topic to another without rhyme nor reason)

Hypocrisy, there's a lot of it about and I don't deny I fall under its evil spell from time to time.  But by and large I try my best to steer clear of it, hence the blog name, i.e. .....with due respect to whoever I'm about to p*** off, I'm just saying what I mean!!

Let's take guns as an example.  I abhor warfare and violence, full stop.  However...

"Oh, you let Daniel have a gun?!  Well, I'm a pacifist and I don't let my children play with guns," a fellow mum told me many moons ago.

Her son was eyeing my son's new Nerf N-Strike Elite Alpha Trooper Blaster with what I can only describe as pure lust while his mum made me feel like had a dinner plate-sized swastika tattoo'd on my thigh.

The thing is this; some kids will be 'into' guns, others won't.  And one thing is certain, children who play with guns won't automatically join the armed forces (if that's the concern of anti-toy gun mums) and I'm fairly certain most won't become gun-toting mass murdering lunatics either.

IT'S A TOY!!!!!  I'M not being a hypocrite, I don't like racing cars either but I don't stop my son having dozens of them to race across the laminate in the kitchen.

My elder son showed no interest in guns whatsoever, in fact, unless it was football-shaped and, actually a football, he wasn't interested in anything much, oh, apart from football, did I mention that!?  I don't like football much either but what's a girl to do, force her boys to play with Barbie and make-up?  Well, actually Daniel did go through a doll phase and I was chuffed to bits!!

But now little Daniel has moved on and owns a small arsenal of plastic guns which fire sponge darts.  And my goodness me, he's such an amazing shot, if I youtubed it would go viral like a dancing dog.

So, a keen eye and steady hand working in perfect harmony, check.  Skills that will come in handy when he's performing heart surgery on babies I'm sure.

Oh, and imagination.  When Daniel hasn't got weapon handy for playing cops and robbers, he'll make one out of Lego, or, let's face it, two fingers and a thumb trigger will do!!  He's doing the gun thing in a make-believe environment, he doesn't really want to kill his brother (well, OK, maybe sometimes, especially when they're on a shared Minecraft server and Teddy lets lava destroy the world Daniel has taken three days creating).

I'm just not sure that suppressing a child's 'urge' to play with a toy gun when his friends have them, is the way forward.  But hey, this is from the woman who inadvertently yanked her son's front tooth out (see last blog) so maybe I should slither down off my soap box and shut it.

And the 'pacifist' mum? I always thought her energies would be much better placed stopping her husband playing Call of Duty on the X-Box in front of the kids.

And......just one more thing.

Today, I walked into a hail of (imaginary) bullets streaming out of my front window and blasting unsuspecting birds out of the sky.  Daniel's 'gun'?  A machine gun, he told me, or, in actual fact, the empty box which had contained the three juggling balls I had bought him for Christmas.  

I rest my case.

Well, until I pen the next blog, and then I'm sure my case, regarding some other noteworthy issue, will be re-opened.