'I want a pooh.'

'I'll have a pooh tomorrow. I'm only going to have a wee wee today.'

There was a pregnant pause that needed to be filled with a third statement of dramatic intensity.

'I'm having a pooh AND a wee wee.'

Ian looked around for the effect his announcement would have on his two brothers. So far Piers and Lars looked unimpressed. He waited to let the idea capture their imaginations and then continued.

'Together.'

'Come on, Ian, you're done. Up you get.'

He was the last to get into the bath. His two brothers were busily dressing. We needed to be quick. Under the new regime at nursery school, if they arrived after half past eight, there would be no breakfast. We had got into the habit of speed-dressing, even at weekends. Ian carried on squeezing water from his plastic fish.

'Up you get, Ian.' I reached for the blue plastic tooth mug on the basin. My small son was upright in a flash. He knew that the mug could very quickly be filled with cold water.

'Good boy, Ian. Glad you see it Daddy's way.'

It had only needed to be done once for the lesson to be learned. The thing about triplets is that each has his own agenda and, if this dominates, chaos is just around the corner. When you are a single parent, bathtime has to be a batch production job just like most daily events.

'Trousers up and hands washed, Lars.'

'Trousers down and on the lavatory, Piers.'

'Now dry between your toes and then blow your nose, Ian.'

There is simply no time for a rational discussion on the joy of obedience and the merits of being on time.

'I did it, Daddy! Not Piers. Not Lars.'

Ian had blown his nose. It had been a productive activity. He dropped the tissue into the lavatory. His eyes met mine for approbation.

'Well done, Ian. You're the only one who can do that.'

His brothers had not yet mastered blowing through the nostrils. They kept their mouths open and smeared mucus across their cheeks. In his elation, his small legs goosestepped to the wardrobe. He carefully pulled the mirrored door open avoiding its springback, tiptoed and ran exploratory fingers along the coloured fabrics hanging there.

'I'll have the red one. No, I won't, I'll have the 'ellow one. I'll have the red one.'

Ian grasped the hem of the teeshirt and tugged it from the hanger. Behind him Lars was quietly getting on with putting on the Tigger top Daddy had laid out for him. Piers was singing on the lavatory:

'I like a nice cup of tea in the morning.

Just to start the day, you see,

And at half-past eleven

My idea of heaven

Is a nice cup of tea'

Ian turned round to see his brother already opening the drawer for his shoes.

'Naah, I'm first!'

On went the red top. His hand grabbed at the nearest pile of fabric. Legs flailing, he thrust his toes into the leg of the pair of trousers that had emerged from the debris.

'Naah! 'Smee! Me!'

Tears streamed down cheeks made pinker by the white rage of his face.

'Try starting at the waist, Ian, and while you're about it, how about putting on your underpants?' The vee neck of his aeroplane red top was pointing down his back. 'And your top's on back to front.'

Clenched fists clutched at the top, pulling to rotate it without taking it off. His body contorted in its hopeless quest.

'I'm first.' Lars stood up matter-of-factly and admired himself in the mirror.

'Except that your shoes are on the wrong feet.'

'No they're not. Yes they are, Daddy.'

Realising he still had a chance to win, Ian made another attempt to get the vee and the aeroplane facing front by extricating his arms and twisting the neck so that it reverted to its original position.

'Where's my pants? No pants. Don't need pants. Naah!'

Caught up in the frenzy of his wild ululation, tears streaming, bare bottom in air, Ian scrabbled for his trousers while Lars casually pressed the velcro at the outside edge of each shoe, stood up and pushed the small friction-drive car Ian had been playing with across the carpet.

'Ready, Daddy. I'm first again.'

'Well done. Lars, you can sit in the front.'

'Naah! 'Smy car! I'm first!' Ian clambered to his feet. His sheepish glance in the full-length mirrored doors of the wardrobe now almost covered with their art work revealed bare feet, cheeks hanging out of pants hanging out of trousers gripping knees and a chubby arm poking through the rearward-facing vee neck of a red top. ''Smeee!'

'No 'snot. 'Sme, silly sausage. Ian's a silly sausage, isn't he, Daddy? We don't say stupid.'

'Well tried, Ian,' I tickled his bare foot, 'but Lars has all his clothes on.'

'Have you had your breakfast, Daddy?' Piers looked concerned.

'Yes, I got up early to feed the cats.'

Piers looked at the early morning greyness outside. 'But you can't have breakfast when it's dark. You can only have breakfast when it's good-morning-time.'

'So what can you have when it's dark?'

'Milk and biscuits. Lift me off the labratary.' Piers's pyjama bottoms streamed inside out in front of him making movement impossible.

'I like a nice cup of tea with my dinner

And a nice cup of tea with my tea

And when it's time for bed,

There's arot to be said

For a nice cup of tea.'

There can't be many children who can bring to mind the popular songs of their great great grandparents' generation. I had remembered it from my father, born before the Great War, as he had, no doubt, from his.