It must be complicated to be two years old. You understand what a monkey is, then someone tells you that some of them are also called gorillas. This makes Litte Pea very cross as he informs you, in a very grumpy way that ‘no, it’s a monkey’.

We had some similar confusion yesterday when I took him to his first pantomime.

He was very good, considering is was two hours long. That is a long time for a Little Pea to stay still. We only had a few oops moments though:

• When he handed me something to look after and I spent a long time trying to work out what it was in the semi dark. I eventually realised it was a bogey.
• When the cast came off the stage (as part of the performance) and he informed me he was ‘going to talk to them’ and rushed off to do exactly that.
• When we had crisps in the interval and just as the pantomime started again the salt got in a cut in his lips, resulting in lots of tears. At this point I seriously considered licking his face to remove the salt really quickly to stop the crying (I didn’t…I just licked my fingers and wiped, but had a sudden ah ha moment around the icky things mums can bring themselves to do for their children.)
• And going back to the monkey conversation…. Before we arrived, I had explained that the story was about Jack, a beanstalk and a giant. As each appeared on stage I pointed them out to Little Pea, and he understood, whispering back to me each time they appeared. Then there was the line as someone pointed to the giant ‘he’s terrifying’. Loudly and indignantly, Little Pea informed everyone that ‘He’s not a terrifying. He’s a giant!’ He got a laugh.
• Finally, the last oops moment was as the curtain came down and Little Pea burst into tears when I said it was time to go home. What was the problem? ‘The chicken! I love the chicken’. I explained the chicken was tired from laying so many eggs and was probably going straight for a bath and bed. ‘But I want to take the chicken home!’.  Luckily, the chicken came out from behind the curtains and a star stuck Little Pea got to meet his new hero:

And slightly connected, two of my friends were in the pantomime, and Friday night I babysat their children while they did their first performance. When they (the kids, not the parents) went to bed, I decided to have fun with their toys. Babysitting can be a lot more entertaining for me than it used to be :o)