With 3 boys under 5, there’s never a dull moment. Certainly never a quiet one…Our Buggy Blogger, who's mum to J (4), B (3) and S (1), realises you can run but you can't hide from that big question.

'Mummy I'm going to marry you when you're dead because I love you'. So says J to me on a regular basis. The sentiment's all good, so it just wouldn't be right to quibble on the detail.

But while I may prefer to focus on the soppy part – who after all can resist a protestation of love – the boys seem rather more interested in the bit about death.

J is particularly fascinated. He'll muse dispassionately on the mechanics of death, wanting to know in detail how people get deaded? We've talked about Henry VIIIth's other halves having an axe-man chop off their heads. And about a besieged queen who was pursued by the mob and eventually lost her head by mechanical means. And there was the time he asked about death by a rope around your neck. Was Saddam's execution the hot topic of playground discussion that day or had a classmate been dragged over the coals for getting inventive with a skipping rope?

Beyond wanting to talk about death, they also like bringing it to life (if you'll pardon the pun) through play. They've been thoroughly cast under the spell of witch folklore, play-acting old hags who kill by petrifaction. And they're always up for bloodthirsty pirate games – sticking each other with feather duster swords and shouting 'Bang Bang' with alarming alacrity.

Then there's the toy castle with its horde of heavily-armed knights, a hotbed for brutal slayings of the most graphic kind – though admittedly it's less acting out bloody sieges just yet, and more about propelling the fearsome-looking blackguards back and forth to the privy.

Aside from the games and gusto, there's a time in the day, usually between bedtime stories and drifting off to sleep, when J worries tearfully at the prospect of me or daddy dying. He sobbingly quizzes me on what happens when people die. Will he still be able to visit me? Can I eat in Heaven? Will I come back again at the end? What will he do if I'm not there to see him marry his best friend SB (well, I’m never one to readily miss a good party J, but what ever happened to marrying me then – ah, the fickleness of youth)?

Bedtime's not the best time to explain the Big Things in life (like the end of it) though. So I've been lightly trying to bring up the 'all things must come to an end' subject during the day. Like watching the water vanish down the plughole at the end of a nice bath - though admittedly the intended reassurance was scuppered somewhat when B went bananas thinking he was about to drain away with it. Or ceremonially removing the now-shrivelled flowers to the recycling bin they’d chosen with daddy as a surprise for mummy. (After the bathwater hiccup I hope I haven't given them the impression we’ll all go by way of the recycling collection truck after death.)

And then there was the ladybird we caught and put in an aerated take-away container to observe and call our pet. Eagerly, we fit him out with an array of home-comforts – air-holes, leaves, twigs, water droplets and so on – which was heaps of fun. Sadly though, the residual curry fumes must've overwhelmed him in the end and eventually he snuffed it. (I'd like to assert that no actual insects suffered in the writing of this blog, but that may not be entirely true.)

And so the circle of life goes on. Which takes me on to their fascination with babies, where they come from and willies and the like … but that's a whole new subject for another time methinks!

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