Little Cavemen

Both Big Brother and Little Brother are obsessed with wheels, and in fact, anything round.

I can see the caveman in them emerging - they are definitely descendants of the first man to kick a round stone and think - 'UUg, that hurt but look it rolled away! I wonder if I can make this piece of mammoth hide into that totally crazy radical shape and when all the guys are hanging round waiting for our extremely rare steak dinners we can kick it to each other.'

My boys would have been great product testers for the first ever ball. They are forever finding objects and testing its aerodynamics - I banned kicking inside for a while then realised I had lost that battle about a hundred thousand years ago. So I bought WG an inflatable beach ball in the hope it would make less impact if it happened to hit the baby. I needn't have worried, the baby was taking notes and now he is mobile he is keen to perfect his own technique.

Little brother is in the pick-up-the-ball-and-drop-it phase of development, and just starting onto kicking, which is not too different to walking-into-it. Big brother is into drop kicks (Dad had to show him because I couldn't actually do one). He also likes to try a few headers.

They are not shape-ist when it comes to balls, they love the crazy bounces off the rugby ball, the big squidgy pink one that is deflating, the Cars ball that bounces really high, the home made felted ball for inside, the water filled petanque balls, the tennis balls for bowling. Balloons are the best giggle factories.

The other thing that is pre-programmed in them is the fascination with the wheel. All toys have to be upended to check their wheels go round and round like the last car. And, coming from a place that defies nature vs nuture, genetics and cultural preconditioning, both boys just picked up a car one day and went 'brrmmm, brrmmmm'.

HOORAY for running around outside after dinner, kicking balls, throwing balls, bowling balls, fishing balls from under the deck, laughing and falling over. Next to mammoth hunting it's really the best fun we've had this century.