When ironing becomes interesting...

I'm as bad as The Boy and bit worse than The Littlest. I am in serious procrastination mode and just can't seem to settle down to work.

The Boy will use almost any excuse NOT to go to bed and if forcibly put there will inevitably find legitimate ways of not staying there. These run along the lines of:

• I need to do a pee
• I need to go to the loo
• I need to do a poo
• I need a drink
• I had a bad dream

and my personal favourite:

• I need to tell you something

This one gets me every time as I am too curious by half and if and when I do send him packing without taking the bait I can no longer get back to doing what I was doing because all I do is wonder what he was going to say, so land up bombing up the stairs to ask, which of course completely undermines what I was trying to achieve in the first place. Discipline.

In the past the things he has to say to me which are too important to wait until the morning run along the lines of Knock Knock jokes and the like but the one he came up with last night was quite simply:

I love you - definitely worth an extra cuddle don't you think?

The Boy's younger brother will actually stay in bed, which is good. The problem is getting him there in the first place.

It's a mixture of promises and threats.

I promise to read you a story and if you don't stay in bed you will have to sleep in the greenhouse. I don't think he knows what a green house is but he is suitably in awe of it and thinks that bed is a more preferable place to kip.

We go through a bit of a rigmarole before I use the threat, down the lines of:

• Where's Jelly? (His unique Jellycat - in that I have not been able to find a spare so live in permanent terror of losing said Jellycat as he refuses to sleep without her. Jelly of course gets lost lots. Mostly she is kidnapped by the Dog and usually found either hiding in the long grass or the Dog's basket. Luckily none the worse for her adventure - I on the other hand am worse and require a medicinal brandy to restore my equilibrium)
• Where's my water?
• Where's Daddy?
• Mummy sleep now?
• Huggie?
• Kiss?

Repeat as often as you can get away with before Mum blows a fuse then:

• I sorry....kiss?

If they procrastinate about going to bed where do I start? Well it actually involves work - which is what I should be doing now - but hey there's the ironing...