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beanbag again in front of the television.
    ‘Reece, you can finish watching that programme,’ I said. ‘Then we will switch it off and you can come and play downstairs. Understand?’
    He nodded, although I wasn’t convinced he’d heard me, for he was now completely engrossed in
Blue Peter,
which would be the last of the children’s programmes before the adult ones took over and his television went off.
    I had just returned to the kitchen and the half-peeled potatoes when I heard Reece again on the landing shouting, ‘Cathy! I need a pooh!’ There was an urgency in his voice and I shot back upstairs as he rushed into the toilet and sat down just in time.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘You’ve got a bit of an upset stomach. I expect it’s because you have been a bit worried about coming here.’
    I waited until he’d finished, and then went through the ritual of tearing off and passing him the folded toilet paper again, until he was clean. I ran the water in the basin and supervised his hand washing, before opening the window wider.
    Two minutes later when I had just returned downstairs and to the potatoes there was another cry: ‘Cathy! I need a pooh!’ I went back upstairs and through the whole process of toilet paper tearing and folding, and hand washing, again. By the time I’d finished peeling the potatoes I had been summoned twice more, and the girls were now asking what the strange smell was permeating round the landing and into their bedrooms, or words to that effect.
    At 5.25 I knew
Blue Peter
had finished, and with the dinner cooking, I went upstairs and explained to Reece that the children’s programmes had come to an end, and that he had watched enough television. I asked him to switch it off. He didn’t, so I asked again; then I switched it off.
    As soon as I pressed the button on the remote it was as though a button had been pressed on Reece. An hour of sitting still in front of the television had recharged his batteries and he fired off like a rocket. In his own world and oblivious to us, he charged round the landing, up and down the stairs, in and out of all the rooms including the bedrooms, making loud and unrelated zooming and whooping noises. Paula, who tried tocatch him as he made another lap of her bedroom, narrowly missed a head-butt as he collided with everything and anyone who happened to get in his way. Reece was hyped up and out of control. I knew the only way to make him calmer was to do a more controlled release of some of his pent-up energy. In the summer I encourage all children into the garden, where they can run and make whooping noises to their hearts’ content. But it was the middle of winter, cold and dark, so I decided to use my other strategy of going for a brisk walk.
    ‘Could you keep an eye on the dinner?’ I said to Lucy and Paula, who were standing on the landing watching Reece unwind like a coiled spring. I’ll take him for a short walk. I’ll only be twenty minutes, but it should do the trick. He probably hasn’t had much exercise today.’
    It was no good trying to catch Reece because he would see that as a game and enjoy the chase, and that in turn would make him even more hyperactive. So I went down the hall, unhooked my coat from the hall stand and began putting it on, while calling: ‘Come on, Reece. You and I will go for a walk before dinner.’
    He was still zooming around, up and down the hall, in and out of the front room and the living room, now yelping for all he was worth. I wasn’t sure if it was imaginative play and he was pretending to be something like a Boeing 727 or a pterodactyl, but it was dangerously out of control. He had his arms out either side of him like wings but the accompanying noise was more like that of a wolf than a plane or prehistoric bird.
    ‘Come on, Reece,’ I said again. ‘Let’s go for a quick walk before dinner.’
    ‘No!’ he yelled at the top of his voice, zooming past me and narrowly missing my arm with his