I don’t know what it is about little people but they have absolutely NO concept of personal body space. If they are giving you kisses and cuddles, that’s all well and good, but a lot of the time it’s neither of the above. I’m forever getting poked, prodded, tugged, stepped on, yanked and slapped.

Take yesterday. I was doing the usual ferrying around from nursery to school to home to swimming (taxi please). Whilst Flump was busy dunking her head underwater and ignoring all swimming instruction, Ludoo was hanging off me like a baby baboon. I could barely see a thing as his legs were wrapped around my neck and his ass was in my face. Each time I tried to rearrange myself he would find some other way of contorting his body around mine. Trying to make any conversation with other parents was completely pointless as Ludoo just got in the way….literally. On other occasions he has been known to wipe his nose all over my clothes just after I’ve got ready to go out, or rip my tights and find it hilarious. He’s a hooligan, I tell you (he must get it from his father).

And then there’s Flump. She seems to have a worrying case of wandering hand syndrome. She is obsessed with poking and (ahem) squeezing certain body parts of mine. I keep telling her it’s TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE but she insists she only wants to do it to me and that she likes how squidgy they are. Okay, too much information. But I really should have seen it coming as she did once pinch an estate agent on his ass when she was three years old…poor man didn’t know how to react, as the Old Git and I looked on horrified.  Anyway, the bottom line is (see what I did there?) my kids appear to have some serious boundary issues when it comes to me (thankfully they don’t do it to other people, apart from the estate agent incident which was years ago). As far as they are concerned, I am there to be jumped on or groped as and when they desire, and sometimes it flipping annoys me.

The question is how do I get them to respect my personal body space without rejecting them? I can hardly tell them to sod off, can I? I reckon the answer must lie in chocolate buttons. If I deduct a chocolate button from their hypothetical stash each time they physically harass me, then that should be incentive enough to stop, surely? Or perhaps I just have to sit it out and allow myself to be manhandled?  After all, it’s their way of showing affection and expressing their needs, albeit in an irritating and invasive way.  Soon they will be teenagers, slamming doors in my face and grunting at my every sentence. Then I will be the one harassing them, lunging for kisses and a cuddles.