Since I’ve been looking after the children on my own in the new place we have instigated a new bedtime tradition: charades.  (Pronounced CHARARDS or CHARAIDS depending on your inclination/country of origin.)

It’s a lot of fun, although we discovered pretty quickly that we have a limited repertoire of mutual books/films/songs/etc to draw from.  I am thankfully unfamiliar with the stuff they like to watch on TV, and they are uninterested in my books and music collection (although my son did once try “A Visit From the Goon Squad” because he liked the title.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, neither me nor my 6 year-old daughter got it.)

Ever the pragmatist, my daughter decided to improvise and invent a brand-new category, knotty in both in its vastness and its vagueness: things.

You’ll see in the video that in between my giggles I am imploring my daughter to stop talking.  (This is not the only time this has been known to happen.)  I am actually rather delighted by her disregard for the rules… although those are doubtless words that will one day come back to haunt me.  And before you ask, no, I have no clue what it is was she was trying to describe.

I wish I were six again.