The Fox

I feel very protective of my third child, Charlie. He’s nearly four and is the kindest little boy you’d ever meet. I already know that his lovely gentle nature is going to make him a target for bullies … I just have a feeling. That and the fact his older and younger brothers are both little bastards to him gives me a fair idea.

From the second he was born he has had Luca to deal with. They’d hardly wiped the vernix off Charlie’s newborn skin before he’d been smacked over the head with a matchbox car and things haven’t really improved for him since.

So when Jude arrived a couple of years after Charlie I figured Luca’s attention would be diverted, never expecting to give birth to another brut of a son who a couple of years later would join forces with Luca in the campaign of terror on Charlie.

The other day I overheard Luca say to him “if you don’t let me have the red train I’m going to chop your eyes out and feed them to the foxes”. Charlie takes things so literally and immediately burst into tears and Luca got into big trouble and had to say sorry.

But the damage was done. The seed of fox fear had been planted.

So as luck would have it a few days later Charlie and I were in the kitchen and in broad daylight out in the back garden sat a fox. Now for those of you who don’t live in England, you almost never see foxes during the day and the chances of having one sitting tamely by your back door in London are even more remote.

Unless you are me.

I was hoping Charlie wouldn’t notice it but he and Mr Fox made eye contact and I swear Charlie stopped breathing. So now I have a 3-year-old who’s completely fox-phobic and who talks about this fox eye eating epidemic all the time.

And true to form the other kids are milking it for all it’s worth. Luca will quietly sneak up behind Charlie and scream “Foooooxxxx” to which Charlie nearly shits his pants. The others think it’s hysterical.

Siblings are evil.