Do you think Tom watches too much TV?

I've been lax, I've been busy, we've been on holiday and blogging just hasn't made it up the priority list for a few weeks. That's just the way it goes sometimes.

That's not to say things have been uneventful - far from it as anyone parenting a three year old will only be too aware. If you have a read of finslippy's open letter to five year olds you'll have a rough idea of where we are at.... which of course is utterly perfect in a tiring, perpetually astounded way.

The whole roleplay thing has expanded to encompass nigh on every waking minute. I do not jest. This is combined with the challenge of remembering which particular script we're following at any given moment. Actually, that's a lie. They all involve being chased and hiding, regardless of the cast.

But I don't get to be Shrek much any more - Tom has decided he makes a much better hero. Even when the (oh so frequent) running away and hiding from the dragon scene has been reshot to death we'll look around and catch Tom silently putting on his invisible armour and sliding his pretend visor down over his face. I hope the day when he's embarrassed that we've caught him doing that is far, far away.

(I hope the day he's embarrassed that we've caught him playing with his winky yet again is a little closer but that's a story for a different time.)

So I spent long periods of our French vacation being Shaggy to Tom's Scooby (the hire car was instantly and permanently named 'The Mystery Machine' although I defy you to find a similarity between them.)












There was also the occasional Spongebob/Patrick double act (more often than not I arrived late to this one and got the rather 'down the billing' part of Squidward. Not that it mattered as far as the chasing was concerned of course.

The only respite from the chasing came when Tom played fast and loose with gender specifics and assumed his Maisy persona. For reasons the director has yet to share with me, I became Eddie the Elephant . In Tom's interpretation of this marvellous set of books this meant I had to do everything he did; ride on his imaginary bus and, much to the amusement of numerous Dutch families in the park, paint the play house with imaginary brushes.

In retrospect I should have had more foresight and explored my role further - maybe come over all method and not relied so heavily on the direction. In contrast, despite protestations by Maisy about this flagrant improvisation, Nik played the Little Black Cat very straight and simply lay in the sun. I know where the genius lies in this family.