I don’t know if it’s just my boys or this is how all boys are, but they never stop. From the minute they wake, till the second they close their eyes, they are little balls of energy all throughout the day. And although it is exhausting and some days I’d rather go to the dentist for root-canal-treatment to get some peace and quiet, I’m used to it. However, something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to, is some of the bizarre things I hear myself say out loud to them throughout the day. I’m sure I’d never say the same words in one sentence if I didn’t have kids. My most recent favourites are:

‘Take your lips off the bin’ – when I realised my 2-year-old had his lips attached to the kitchen bin while I was scraping the remains of his dinner plate in.

‘Please stop bouncing on your brother’s head’ – during a pillow fight I realised that my youngest had a pillow on top of his brother’s head and was excitedly bouncing on his bum on top of it. If you listened closely you could just hear the muffled protests of ‘STOP’ ‘STOP’ from his brother.

‘Don’t lean in the sick!’ – after my son vomited on MY bedroom floor this week, he decided to observe the clean-up a little too closely and when he tried to get up from the floor, he put his hand in it.

‘You’ve got your umbrella the wrong way, it’s not for catching rain’ – during a particularly heavy downpour my son decided that this was the best thing to do, obviously.

‘No, I haven’t shaken the hand of a Chimney Sweep’ – my response to my six-year-old’s question. I have nothing further to add to this – that was the end of the conversation.

‘I mean, I guess you are peach’ – when my son couldn’t understand why someone described him as having white skin, when his skin was obviously peach. I particularly loved this conversation as it gave a little insight into the innocence of a child’s mind and how some adults could learn a thing or two from them, but that’s for another blog!

These are just some silly examples of things that have been said between my kids and I recently. But I think what’s really important for all of us to remember, is to make the effort to engage in daily conversation with our kids from an early age, no matter how bizarre the topic may be. It’s so important for a child’s personal and social development to be able to communicate confidently to others and the earlier they can articulate their thoughts and feelings, the more confident an individual they will become. In this crazy, fast-paced, technological world we live in, we need to put down our phones, turn off Netflix and make time to chat with our kids. Engage and listen to what they say, and when I say listen, I mean really listen instead of having one eye on Facebook or finishing off that email. We need to stop and be present for them – we may even learn a thing or two.