Andrew Hoyle: 'His bumblebee fixation shows no sign of abating'

Low points of the past 12 months include our six-year-old son breaking his collar bone in a spectacular fall on Halloween - only for the injury to go undiagnosed for several days.

In hindsight I should have suspected something was up when I took him swimming and he kept going round in ever-decreasing circles. He also struck his head in the same incident, but it doesn't seem to have knocked any sense into him.

Take last month's visit to the theatre to see a live musical production of The Secret Garden.

Having explained the story to him at some length while seated in the auditorium a few rows from the stage, just before curtain-up he earnestly inquired: "Is this in black and white?"

His three-year-old sister is showing all the signs of having a similarly tenuous grasp on reality.

At time of writing she is preparing to play the part of Mary in her nursery nativity, but was overheard singing "Away in a manger, no room for a crab, the little lord Jesus asleep on his head ..." Looks like it could be an interesting show.

Doubtless there are some amusing jolly japes and kids-say-the-funniest-thing-style anecdotes relating to her eight-year-old brother. Unfortunately, however, none spring to mind.

His bumblebee fixation shows no sign of abating - last seen he was padding about the house in a pair of yellow and black fluffy slippers (with wings and feelers, of course) like some grotesque character from Tales Of The Unexpected. Deeply worrying.

Maintaining discipline with three boisterous kiddies in one tiny house continues to pose a challenge, but I am thrilled to report that my adaptation of the 'kettling' tactic deployed by the police during the student riots has proven effective at keeping them off Club Penguin and away from the Cartoon Network for up to 30 minutes at a time.

I don't expect to need water cannon - but I haven't ruled it out either.

This article was first published in Scotland On Sunday, 2 January, 2011