Darling Wifey came home from Edinburgh on Saturday all shaken and upset. She had murdered a little bird.

Apparently she was cruising along the motorway with a Cooper full of friends after a pilgrimage to that cafe where JK Rowling wrote some story or other when she ‘met’ a bird coming the other way.

Time for another joke:
What’s the last thing that goes through a bird’s mind when it hits your windscreen?
Its bum.

Anyway, she was traumatised because the bird broke its neck inches from her face and then died slowly on the windscreen wiper before falling onto the road.

All sympathy for the bird ended this morning when I washed her car and discovered that the birdstrike had cracked her windscreen.

On the upside, I won our bet. She said I would be the first to break her little car – but it was her. Now I need to give her a forfeit…

Every time Little Nutter gets into a mess at nursery they put a ‘spare outfit’ on him and send his own clothes home in a bag. I like this arrangement because it means I don’t have send him to nursery with spare clothes.

Three times a week he comes home with borrowed kit on and a small blue plastic bag he can hang off his ear.

After a week or so we have a large-ish pile of these borrowed clothes next to the washing machine, so in the morning we fold them up and give them to Little Madam to carry into nursery.

Little Madam carefully carries these clothes and gives them to the nurse in charge of Little Nutter’s class.

Little Nutter watches her closely and thinks, “Oh, today’s the day we give our clothes to Chrissy,” and he strips and hands over his clothes.

We needed some milk. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

Darling Wifey’s new Mini Cooper also needed some petrol. (I told you – I’m sticking to my story.)

And Little Nutter was being unusually affectionate. (Well, he was acknowledging that he had a daddy and standing near me, looking at a bit of the wall not entirely in the opposite direction.)

So I put him in a clean nappy and found his shoes, dug out my sunglasses, and told darling Wifey that Us Lads were off out to run some errands and have some Quality Time.

Little Nutter got to sit in the front seat as we set off for the petrol station – which is, as the crow flies, about 1.5 miles away. However, in a Mini Cooper, it is a thirty mile route along twisty country lanes. (And thirty miles back, naturally…)

Little Nutter loves opening windows and resting his head on the ledge. He squeals happily when we start to “travel” – *ahem* – and when we reached the petrol station he had the best hairdo I have ever seen!

Little Nutter doesn’t have a conscience. Well, he shows no evidence of having a conscience, so if he does have one he has learned to ignore it very effectively.

Learning how to look after a child for whom right and wrong are incomprehensible is an interesting problem, especially where siblings are concerned. Little Madam tearfully cries, “It’s not fair having a brother with autism” at least twice a week – usually as he makes off with something he has liked the look of and simply taken. There is no point reasoning with a child for whom basic communication remains a distant dream.

Tiny Flirt, on the other hand, now has communication skills far in excess of Little Nutter. Alongside his chattiness, he is also developing an acute perception of what is and isn’t allowed.

But, being an 18 month old boy, he doesn’t let that stop him.

So when I walked into the “grown-ups only” sitting room to see what he was doing, and found him reaching for the stereo ‘on’ switch, he nearly jumped out of his skin!
And when he found some chocolate in the kitchen he tried very hard to hide it under his chin and smuggle it into the playroom. When he was caught, he stuffed it into his mouth, where it didn’t fit, and tried to hide his head behind the telephone chair.
Right now he is hiding underneath Little Nutter’s bed slurping away frantically at Little Nutter’s fruit juice (freshly stolen) – because he can hear me typing on the computer next door and wants to finish it before he gets caught.

When I catch him a fiver says that as soon as he recovers from the guilty shock he gives me a huge, toothy, cheeky grin.

A very good friend of mine is a Frenchman we used to live near – and I reckon that Darling Wifey fancies him.

Being French, certain things come naturally to him. Every time he opens his mouth to speak, women go weak at the knees. When he chucks scraps found in the bottom of the fridge into a pan and opens a bottle he found in the back of the garage, Egon Ronay weeps and Gordon Ramsay hangs up his apron. And he can wear a tank top and an anorak and still manage to look sexier than Colin Firth emerging from a Derbyshire pond in that shirt.

Little Nutter is the opposite. I don’t know what it is or how he does it, but he can make the trendiest, most expensive and well-made clothes just look wrong.

His clothes today were new, they fit him perfectly, and they are this season’s lines from a fashionable shop. The usual process of ‘autism-acclimatisation’ went smoothly, and he was happy to wear them. Somehow, though, the mental disability of autism has had a physical effect on him, and he achieved that ‘look:’ not scruffy, not even untidy. Just the uncanny ability to make good quality clothes look wrong.

Without even trying, Little Nutter demonstrates just how shallow and unimportant appearances can be.

Little Nutter’s shoes finally dropped to bits – still fitting him perfectly.

I don’t believe it, either.

He hates getting new shoes even more than he hates having his hair cut, so once again we planned our shopping trip down to the last tiny detail. From the moment he woke up this morning his every whim would be catered for and his every desire fulfilled. With any luck, he would be blissfully happy and might, just might, tolerate twenty minutes in the shoe department.

Fat chance. He woke up an hour before us this morning with a full nappy – and started to investigate. He only woke us when he decided he wanted to be cleaned up.

His favourite breakfast (hob-nobs and cornflakes with a side order of hot, dry toast) landed on the kitchen floor. Instead, he helped himself to eight of Tiny Flirt’s yoghurts and a packet of Monster Munch when I was in the bathroom changing Tiny Flirt’s nappy. So much for the dairy-free diet.

Then he watched Beauty and the Beast in Italian. (This is because he lost the DVD remote control and we couldn’t reset the language option without it. It was found later, having been inserted in the slot in the front of the video player.)

By the time we reached the city centre, Darling Wifey and I were visibly shaking and Little Nutter was in a strange place that even Pink Floyd lyrics couldn’t describe. We gave up on the subtle approach. We bought him an enormous sausage roll, dragged him into the shoe shop, warned the assistant that he had autism and would tantrum, and then I sat on him.

Ten minutes later he was the proud owner of a new pair of shoes (with flashing lights) and he fell asleep in his buggy.

Here’s the routine: after work I hang around in my office, enjoying the peace and quiet and getting some work done.

This is because my evening involves collecting all three children and then entertaining and feeding them whilst Darling Wifey enjoys her 85 mile commute in a Mini Cooper. My sympathy for her is immeasurable.

Little Madam is the first to be collected. She has been initiated into the Order of the Pester, thankfully only as a novice. However, she is dutifully practising at every opportunity, and the ten minute journey from her after-school club to the boys’ nursery is filled with pleas for delicious sweets, some grotesque toy that (for reasons understandable only to under-tens) looks like an embryonic alien in an egg, and the latest edition of the Disney Princesses magazine.

Then the fun starts.

A nursery is an environment with a tendency towards chaos, but which must be subjected to the ruthless and merciless imposition of order at all costs. As you can imagine, this is pure folly – Little Nutter attends this nursery.

As I park in the disabled customer’s space, right next to the front door, the office staff wave and telephone the boys’ classes. Tiny Flirt is quickly washed and put into a clean nappy and his coat. Reinforcements are sent to Little Nutter’s class.

Little Madam is dispatched to collect any paintings, models or photographs for display at home. Tiny Flirt is swiftly taken to Little Nutter’s classroom for collection by me, and any off-duty members of staff are asked to stand by the door.

Get the picture? I won’t give any more details, other than to let you know that tonight’s incident involved a small pot of bright red poster paint landing on Tiny Flirt.

Unfortunately, on the way home we needed to pop into the supermarket for some food and chocolate bribes (dairy free, of course) and I enjoyed the undivided attention of every other human being in the building.

Litte Madam was, by now, in tears because I had told her that no, she could not have an alien baby. No offers of new books, fresh fruit or writing equipment were acceptable; she was inconsolable.

Little Nutter was lying on the parcel tray underneath the shopping trolley and trying his damnedest to lick the muck from the trolley wheels as they span round, millimeters from his angelic little face. Any attempts to stop him were fought off robustly.

Tiny Flirt did the most damage to my public image, though. He just sat in the trolley seat, looking sad and unloved, with massive smears of slightly damp red paint around his ears and neck and across his arm. He looked like the victim of a deranged axe-wielding maniac.

The highlight of the shopping trip, though, was at the very end. Even though every customer, security guard and member of staff watched me as I worked my way through the shop, only one person said anything to me. The girl on the checkout asked, “Would you like any help with your packing, sir?“

It’s our eleventh anniversary today. (What’s the symbol for that? Probably ibuprofen or something. Or maybe “Figleaves Voucher.”)

Tonight I have a reservation for one of the best restaurants in York. I booked it months ago. The babysitter is also booked, and everything is ready for a great night out.

Except last night I ate a dodgy pizza from Tesco, and have been puking ever since. I feel terrible and have turned an interesting shade of pale green.

The most romantic thing I am capable of today is taking Darling Wifey to the trading estate to order a new washing machine (yes, that’s right, the last of our major household appliances died this week. That’s six in the five months since moving house. I think that the removal men were actually agents working for Curry’s.)