Fully Formed at 7

So following on from the ketchup debacle, the boys and I spent a slightly tetchy weekend alone-ish.

Not entirely alone, obviously; we went to Holland Park on Saturday morning and got sand into places you wouldn't expect, until even I was forced to agree that that it had 'stopped raining slowly' and was now bucketing down. Then in the evening I took them over to friends for dinner so that they could trash their children's toys and then refuse to eat part of the dinner which had kindly been prepared for them. Not completely refuse, of course: Boy #1 ate everything except the broccoli, and Boy #2 ate everything except the chicken. You'ld think I would have learned by now to cook only one meal for them so that they could share it out between them like Jack Sprat and his wife.

My beloved then arrived back from his trip to the white stuff yesterday lunchtime. This was 5 hours earlier than scheduled - hurrah!

Determined to have some time off, I refused to cook dinner in the evening citing extreme cabin fever, and the fact that if I didn't get out of the house I was likely to implode - or at the very least, make him unpack his ski stuff before he planned to. Things didn't work out completely as planned, however, when the planned walk to a local Italian restaurant was rained off and I decided that dragging Husband and the Boys away from their train set was tantamount to cruelty. They looked so idyllic, playing together on the floor, that I just couldn't face suiting them up and getting soaked on the way to the car, only to sit in a noisy restaurant for an hour trying to get Boy #2 to stay put and Boy #1 to eat without whining.

So I went out to get pizza. By the time I got back it was only Husband playing with the train set whilst both Boys were glued to the tv. Hmmm....

The pizza delicious and both children shovelled it down as if they had not been fed in weeks, until Boy #1 said "I love pizza, mamma. Thankyou for making it." Deciding I couldn't really take credit for Strada's work, I owned up and said "Well, I didn't actually make it darling. I went and got this from a restaurant." Silence. "That's not very nice!" Shocked, I asked, "Why on earth not?"

"You can't just go into a restaurant and take people's food off their plates!"

Clearly he thinks I am the type of person who would make a hit and run attack on a pizza parlour. And I don't even own a striped shirt, black hat and mask... well, not since I left university, anyway.


On a more prosaic note, I read recently that the latest thinking amongst the child psychology community is that by the age of 7, most children's characters are fully formed (in their basic state). For example, a child of 7 will be passionate about 2 or 3 things, and these same things are the ones that - all being well, and barring any problems in development - they will remain passionate about for the rest of their lives.

This got me thinking of course about my boys, but also trying to think back how I was at 7 years old. What got my motor running at such a tender age? I should of course ask my mum, but she is out gallivanting as usual (when did my parents get a better social life than me? Aah yes - with the arrival of my children, of course), so I forced myself to think back on what was important to me at that age. This is a struggle because I can't remember what I had for dinner the day before yesterday, let alone what I did 30+ (ahem) years ago. It almost made my brain hurt - I could practically see the steam coming out of my own ears.

Still, after a good 5 minutes of intense brain activity, I came up with the following:

• Reading
• Learning - and regurgitating - useless facts
• Telling other people what to do

Is it any wonder I ended up working in marketing?

What were your passions at 7? And are they still manifesting themselves in your life?