Living room leap

The season of birthday parties is upon us; we went to two today. There was a bouncy castle at the first, and the second had a huge soft-play area with slides, ropes and a ball pit. You'd think with so much bouncing, climbing, sliding and let's not forget all that consuming of sugar, my children would have been totally wiped out by teatime. But they were not.

Surprisingly, they still needed to work off some excess energy; luckily Saturday television favourite Total Wipe-out inspired them. They spent an entire hour arranging our cushions, footstool, chairs, the sofa and pouffe into a living room obstacle course for their own show. They took it in turns to spectacularly leap and swim, climb and fall (in slow motion of course) just like the contestants on the TV programme.

I think they would have carried on playing this game until midnight - still on their party-high - but I could see they were totally shattered. The only way I could get them up upstairs in the vague direction of bed was by the promise of an award ceremony, just like on the show.

As trophies were presented, previously made thank goodness, I could see them winding down fast - crashing down really. Daisy told me as she flopped into bed that it had all been good practice for when she's going to be on Total Wipe-out when she's a grown up. And Buddy didn't say anything. I suspect he was already asleep. That's what I call a total wipe-out.