Last week middle man merrily bounced out of school and waited for his elder brother to come out of class. All of a sudden he started panicking. He had forgotton the picture he had made. I told him to go and get it and he excitedly did so. A minute later he returned in floods of tears. I immediately assumed that the teachers had mistaken said masterpiece for some recycling and his beloved picture had been binned. Of course that wouldn't be the case as they are the same teachers that sent home this:



I know to the untrained eye it appears that middle man is mearly carrying 3 cereal boxes home to recycle, but this is actually a gup that he made for his brother and was really proud of for the few minutes before it fell apart from the 3 pieces of sticky tape holding it together.

Anyway, I digress. Middle man couldn't get into his classroom and was upset as he really wanted his picture. Big man's class was showing no signs of leaving anytime soon so I popped round with him wiping away his tears. When I got there and they saw how upset he was the teachers really went overboard about how great middle man's picture was. They told me how he had thought about every present he had put under the tree. They handed me this:



"Oh that is so lovely!" I exclaimed.

"I know" said middle man. "I chose this for you and Daddy" he said pointing at some mathematical counting blocks that he had cut out of a teaching resources catalogue. "This is for little man...."

"No!" Screamed little man bursting into tears. "Me not like that!"

So I left the room with not one but two crying children. One upset that his imaginary gifts were unwelcomed from his brother and one who I now know really doesn't want any colouring pencils under the Christmas tree.