My children love minions. Actually that’s a lie. Thing 1, aged 18, has an inordinate amount of disdain for the obnoxious yellow Tic Tacs of doom. But the other three, they love minions, and somewhat predictably a cuddly example of the species has found its way into our home. Just one. And therein lies the problem. Admittedly it’s not a problem for Thing 2, who limits her minion admiration for liking memes on Facebook, just a problem for Sebastian and Annie. Sadly, it is the Sebastian-and-Annie problems that seem to generate the most chaos.

I’m sure you can guess what’s coming next. 1 minion + 2 preschoolers = arguments. Annie, being both dangerously insane and three years old, is quite unsubtle in her attempts to gain possession of the minion. This evening, for example, she divebombed out of her car seat before I’d had a chance to fasten her in to try and snatch it out of a bag. Sebastian is much more cunning.

This is how it goes. Annie has the minion. She puts it down for a second, distracted by a yearning for a biscuit, and poof! It’s gone. Then she wants the minion. Wants it so much she HOWLS. And where is the minion? Nowhere, it seems. So we look for it. It cannot be found. We ask her where she left it but predictably she does not know.  We ask Sebastian.

“I don’t know,” he says. He is lying.

Eventually the minion is found, stuffed under the sofa. It’s too big to have got there by itself, and too far in for Annie’s arms to have stuffed it in. 

“Sebastian, how did this get here?” we ask. 

“It was a ghost,” he says. A ghost? A ghost who likes stuffing minions under sofas (although frankly, it’s the best place for them)? I don’t think so. But he sticks to his story. “A ghost,” he says. “With ARMS.”

So we pull the minion out and give it to Annie. And no doubt the whole thing will kick off again in three…two…one…”MINION!”