The "Walker"

or "war chariot" as it also known here, is becoming a liability. I foresee much squabbling over boundaries and personal space in the not-too-distant-future. Boss is a big boy who wants to do things which little baby seven month olds just cannot do. Like, well, like just about everything you care to think of. Plus seven month olds just don't understand that pulling hair, standing on heads, kicking the face and riving eyeballs out of their sockets is just not on. This, I am sure, he will learn very very quickly because Boss is just about having enough of it. As he is of having his head stood on and rammed against The Walker. He has had enough of being followed like a shadow. He is getting tetchy about being bugged. If he knew the words I am sure I would hear "Stop STALKING ME" leave his lips almost every minute of every day.

But what to do. Jaws adores him. His face lights up every time he sees his brother. Where Boss is, is where the action is and that's where his little legs take him. Just like a magnet. Or a moth to a flame... hm...

It all came to a head yesterday when Boss started screaming GO AWAY GO AWAY DON'T DO THAT and I found almost everything Boss was doing on the floor, or mid-air as Jaws flung it in gay abandon on one of his search and destroy missions. So I taught Boss a new trick - simply put a large cushion in front of wherever you don't want your brother to go - he's a darlek, remember?

Happy Boss.


But the howls that came out of Jaws when I was doing the washing up were unbearable. It made my ears bleed. So being the caring mother you all know I am I politely yelled, "CAN IT DARLEK BOY - I'M LOSING THE WILL TO LIVE". But he still screamed and it made my brain rattle so I *had* to go and invigilate again and found poor Jaws cornered by the door surrounded by a wall of two foot cushions and beanbags. He was beside himself with horror and frustration at this curbing of his Right to Roam.

So we tried the brakes. We wheeled Jaws really near the table - near enough to be near his beloved, but far enough away so he couldn't eat anything - and we put the stoppers on.

Have any of you seen the "World's Strongest Man" competition? They have a section in it where the competitor has to pull an articulated lorry or tanker or tank or aeroplane 100 metres over a white line using nothing but a rope and their bare hands. They really struggle and contort their face into one of sheer determination and pain.

Well, funnily enough this is exactly the same face a seven month old makes when you put the brakes on his walker. Man, he is determined. And through this unrelenting determination a terrible, terrible thing happened. It may have far reaching implications on inter-brother relations. We heard a 'crack' then we saw a red piece of plastic almost embed itself in the ceiling and all of a sudden Jaws was spinning around and around like an Irish dancer on amphetamines. He was most peturbed and so were we. All we could see was flashes of his little face with an "argh help me" expression as he hurtled past going in ever faster circles. One stopper has been obliterated and now we have a Morris Dancer in our midst. It was quite cute for a while. Even Boss smiled and went "ah bless him" as he giggled in inhumane delight at the exasperation of a forlorn and desperate hapless beast flailing in front of us...

It still isn't enough to stop him getting to what he wants to get to as he has now included the calculations of the encircling tangent into his equations of how to reach what he wants to trash, but now instead of trashing one thing he takes the entire room down with him.

I think from now on we should just sit on the sofa and watch the show. Maybe I could get him little tap shoes and cute outfits...

Anybody suggest ways of easing these in-yer-face moments ... I'm kidding myself it will get easier as they get older. Stop laughing.