We may not have sat around hugging ourselves and beating djembe drums, but James and I had a good time of male bonding on Friday night. We sat huddled in the gale force wind, and I listened to other people party until 4am, and then dozed fitfully until 4.15. We had to get up early so that I could get to work, so sleep didn’t really feature.

Anyway, camping= tick: We’ll definitely do that again.

Right now, James has moved on to different challenges. Neen and I recognized a fundamental deficiency in his life today. He was playing in his paddling pool, and he found a dead ant. (Everyone hum the ‘Pink Panther’ theme music: deadant, deadant, deadant deadant deadant…) He was earnestly trying to coax it back to life, giving it little bowls of water, and speaking in soothing baby-talk to him/it. Suddenly (!) He rushed inside… the ant had come back to life! I can attest to its feeble head movements, although there was little happening in its thorax. (It was a sexiplegic). James rapidly ascribed the miraculous healing to Jesus, but sadly the ant did indeed succumb to the inevitable a few minutes later.

Unpeturbed, he set about making a little home for his new pet, the dead ant…

We have also seen him leaping about the house trying to catch a fly to keep as a pet, but when your son is happy to settle for a dead insect as a pet, it is time to act. Apart from some allergies to dogs and cats, and some degree of caninophobia, we have no restrictions on what we can keep as pets.

Neen, being cautious, called him over. James, would you like a goldfish? She probed.

Nah. What kind of pet would you like? We asked. He is not too fussy, it seems, and would settle for a hamster, a tadpole or a parakeet. I have some experience in living with, and outliving, small pets, and was able to tell him about the nocturnal attitudes of hamsters, and the short life spans of mice.

I am quite fond of rats as pets, as they are affectionate, clever and clean. (Just like me). I managed to clinch the deal, and he was about to settle for a hypothetical rodent, when Neen offered to get him one for his birthday. Ever since, he has been asking us questions about rats. What do they eat, do they bite, and can he take it to school… Neen’s only proviso is that it doesn’t have creepy pink eyes. (Sorry if you are an albino blogger, my wife can be hopelessly insensitive).

But generous. Come September, our house will be infested with rodents again, except this time it will be in a cage instead of roaming free in our ceiling. (Mental note: Get rid of any remaining sachets of rattex…)

I have seen those kids in his class. They are quite ‘exuberant’, ie, violent, and I don’t want to be like the Stephen Spender poem, ‘My parents kept me from children who were rough…’. I want him to have a fair stab at fitting in, and presenting a dead ant as his pet at ‘Morning Ring’ (kind of show-and-tell) is bound to bang some nails in his social coffin. Rats carry a certain amount of weight, socially speaking, although you don’t want to get too attached, as very few people with a rodent on their shoulder succeed at blind-dates.

James, beat that drum, and throw that rat a cookie… We’ll make a man of you yet…