We have turned a corner in our struggle to communicate with Little Nutter; he now understands and correctly uses the word, “Happy.”

With an exaggerated smile and lots of enthusiasm, the word ‘happy‘ can encourage and reward. With an exaggerated frown, the words ‘not happy‘ can stop him in his tracks and bring him round from destructive Little-Nutterness to angelic sweetness. He understands!

Suddenly we have a way to communicate with him.

Little Madam has been saving her Easter Egg money this year (what with Little Nutter’s dietary needs where chocolate is concerned, most people do the sensible thing and send money at Easter and ask us to buy Easter Eggs for the short people in our house.)

But Little Madam had A Plan. This involved the application of what Darling Wifey calls “the deferment of gratification.” This is something that girls can do, but real men can’t.

Apparently, when faced with the prospect of a treat, a girl’s brain continues to work. She still has willpower, and is able to resist temptation, evaluate, deliberate and calculate. In short, she can say “no” when offered enough chocolate to make her sick, and opt for a perferred treat later on.

Very strange.

Anyway, I digress. Little Madam abstained from chocolate this Easter, and took her money to the Warner Brother’s shop, where she bought her very own Mystery Machine and set of Scooby-Do action figures.

The second that Little Nutter saw it, Thomas the Tank Engine was dumped, and those pesky kids were kidnapped! To our astonishment, Little Nutter began to play with the figures, positioning them in tableau vivants of scenes from the Scooby-Do movie. (Available at all good shops; recommended as an inhumane instrument of torture.)

So it seems that even though Little Nutter cannot comprehend or participate in human social interaction, he is quite capable of a sort of displaced mimicry of it.

This is good. This gives us an opportunity for education and development. Tomorrow, Fred and Daphne will be learning how to use the toilet properly.

But today, we had to drive to Sheffield (again!) to buy another Mystery Machine.

I’ve just spent a couple of hours cleaning the house.

Darling Wifey was secluded in her study, indulging in some muse or other, oblivious to the mayhem downstairs.

Little Nutter was following me around the house, babbling angrily and trashing everything as soon as I had finished tidying and cleaning it.

Little Madam was following Little Nutter, tidying up his hard work and complaining loudly that it isn’t fair having a little brother with autism.

Tiny Flirt was watching the entertainments from the comfort of a chair with a cup of milk on one hand, a fish finger in the other, and singing “The wheels on the bus.”

The most surreal aspect of today was the faintly ridiculous fact that I bought a brand new Mini with my Debit Card.

This, apparently, is logical. It is the most secure and reliable way to transfer loans from your bank to the dealership’s bank, and within five minutes of arriving the very nice man was showing Darling Wifey how to operate the CD player in her new car. Fair enough.

Then (whilst the children were otherwise occupied with grandparents and nurseries) we drove to Scarborough for fish and chips. Then we drove to ToysRUs for new car-seats for the Fellowship of the Snot to sit on in the new car.

Finally, before bedtime, I took Little Madam for a ride in Mummy’s new car - to buy some milk and bread for tomorrow’s breakfast.

We cooked up a great story whilst we were out: we would tell Mummy that we managed to miss the tree when we skidded off the road into a field, and that the shopping trolley at the supermarket only left little scratches. We also decided to tell Mummy that the burst bottle of milk wouldn’t make the car smell too bad if I used the hose pipe to wash out the inside of the car.

Then Little Madam sniggered into her hand and shouted “Only joking!”

I think my daughter needs lessons in the Ancient Art of the Wind-Up.

Tiny Flirt is at that age where he copies everything he adores and admires, and all things that are wonderful in Tiny Flirt’s eyes can be summed up in two words:
Little Nutter.

In the eyes of an 18-month-old boy, a four-year-old is a sophisticated man of the world. The fact that the resident Wide Boy, chez nutter, can’t actually make sense of the world just adds an inventive twist to the joys of growing up.

This makes speaking quite interesting, for a start. Tiny Flirt now has a vocabulary of about 50 words, and clearly understands several times that - as well as numerous phrases. However, Little Nutter gets away with just twelve words (ten of which are “1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10″) and a scream. Today, for an experiment, Tiny Flirt decided to try that tactic himself.

Darling Wifey is now in bed sleeping off 600mg of ibuprofen and three large brandies.

Then there are the wheels. Tiny Flirt doesn’t get the attraction of wheels, but by God he is trying. Little Nutter watches wheels go round for hours at a time - and what your hero does, you must do too.

As a parent, I find the confused expression on his face as he looks to me to check that he is getting the obsession right very, very reassuring. He can be distracted by storybooks and the “Let’s name all the bits of Daddy’s face” game, but like all faithful puppies he must eventually return to the Master’s side.

I think that throughout Tiny Flirt’s life, “persistence” and “diligence” are words that will be used to describe him. He has demonstrated these qualities to the full by licking the soles of his feet every single ****ing time he wants to walk barefoot on the wooden floor in the front hall.

What’s the point of worrying?

There are some workmen in front of our house at the moment. Bob-the-Builder types with big boots and hard hats.

Their flatbed trucks are parked on the street, they have lots of noisy motorised tools, and they have dug a massive hole.

Naturally, Little Nutter and Tiny Flirt have formed an alliance to watch the proceedings carefully - in order to see if anything interesting is going to happen.

The Fellowship of the Snot press their little faces against windows, leaving iridescent patterns on the glass. Every now and then they are moved along so the window can be washed (well, peeled if I may be descriptive about it…) and they race round to another room to establish a new vantage point.

They worked together to move the furniture in the family room in order to provide a clear view across the front garden. The windows in there are already smeared.

Since this is the first time Little Nutter has actually interacted with his brother, we are delighted. It’s going in his autism diary.

Should I keep samples of anything for the paediatrician?