There are several indications

as to the way in which your children are being raised. I'm not talking the style of parenting, or whether or not you believe in "time out" or anything like that. Oh no. I'm talking about less obvious things - language, expression, empathy. The things that are not taught so much as absorbed by osmosis. The children will take your behaviour as their example.

Now in a language sense I will demonstrate. Master 3 had the option between 2 things. He decided upon one, then changed his mind, saying "Actually, I think I'll have the other one." Fine, that makes perfect sense, and is not an unreasonable thing to say. Slightly cute to hear a 3 year old saying actually.

Today it became obvious that perhaps I say actually a little too much. Miss 4 sitting at the dinner table explaining something to me, which went something like this: "Actually, I don't think that I actually DO want that one, actually."

Hmmm.

I stubbed my toe this evening. It hurt. I literally cried out in pain, then grabbed the door to steady myself. Miss 5 and Master 3 came rushing to me and gave me a cuddle, asking if I was okay and saying "There there baby, it's ok." Why no Miss 4? Well she was sitting on the floor with her jeans around her ankles as she had been unable to pull them up after going to the toilet, and, well, obviously she just gave up.

So there was sympathy, caring, making sure I was okay. It was quite heartwarming.

Fast forward an hour when we are all in the bathroom brushing teeth, and I decide to sit on the edge of the bathtub. I turned a little awkwardly then gasped loudly as I saved myself, last minute, from falling into the bath.

And what do you think the kids did?

Yep. They laughed. Really really loudly. And long. Nice one guys.

We did have a lovely day today - the kids got to see my new work, we visited a few parks, got some takeaway pizza for lunch (which was compensated for by dinner of steak and five different sorts of vegetables), played lots, and just generally had a fabulous time.

In the evenings we tend to play around a bit, whether that be actual games, or just being a bit silly, or some little assisted tumbles or whatever. Tonight I decided to pretend that Miss 5 was my teddy bear, cuddle her tightly and mock snore. She giggled incessantly and wiggled and screamed "WAKE UP!!!" at me and it was all a bit of a laugh.

Then it was Miss 4's turn. She climbed aboard, I repeated the exercise I had just done with Miss 5, after which Miss 4 looks at me and says "Your teddy bear just farted on you." Charming.

Now I will leave you with a lesson. If you lose something, sometimes it is better to just wait until you have a house with no kids present before looking for said item.

Under no circumstances EVER should you utter the words "Can you please help me look for X?"

Because they will depart, maybe straight away, maybe five minutes later, and then when you realise you haven't heard from them for a while you will go to check on them to find the entire contents of their toy chests strewn all over the floor, with children hanging off various different pieces of furniture like molluscs off a pier. And when you ask them what they are doing they will calmly reply "Helping you look."

And there endeth the lesson.