Triplets at airports

Squirrel, Shark and Tiger are big girls. You are aged seven, we say casually, like we are handing over the keys of the car, adding don't bring that Jonathan back again because last time I had to stare at his ugly mug over my cornflakes.

Seven, girls, seven. You are aged seven. Girls who are aged seven, we say, in case they have forgotten from the last time we said it six minutes ago, do not scream in public. Big girls aged seven do not take swinging punches at their sister. Big girls do not snarl, growl, nor lift up their wheelie bags in a rage, build up momentum as they are swinging round in a pirouette, and try to take out both sisterly bodies in a single strike. Unless you are Bjork, or course, in which case you can. And if you do any of these things, we say, then we will lie in a loud voice that you cannot trash hotel rooms either just because your rock star big sister does. We have to find some excuse, Shark, just shut up and let us deal with it.

These days, we just get sulky age seven looks returned to us. Sometimes Squirrel rolls her eyes and tuts. She must have seen that somewhere on kid's TV and thinks this is how to be grown up. We are aged seven she will say with a sigh. We are not aged three.

When the children were aged three, and ran amok the moment their eyes say the lovely wide open spaces of an airport terminal, then things were trickier.

I discovered many solutions to the problem of three little kids running off in three different directions. Here is one. It is ribbon. Ribbon will do the job, so will wool, embroidery thread, string and any type of tape, so long as it is flexible and long enough. This is what you do.

1. Have three cute little bags ready for the airport terminal hidden in your hand baggage. At the terminal, whip these bags out and declare the magic fairy brought them. Incidentally, magic fairies are very useful and can make all sorts of household objects appear and disappear in seconds. It is, in fact, the same magic fairy who makes mother's bottle of beer arrive at lunchtime which mummy says is a special kind of fizzy lemonade which is why you can't have some.

2. Anyway, unless your children are not normal, you can rely on the kids immediately being enthralled by the appearance of cute bags, which they will rip open. And inside? A bright and shiny coil; 6 metres long of broad satin ribbon, all neat and new. Immediately the kids start to unwind it. Encourage this. The rest of the departure crowd will be scattering at this point as they see blue, red, purple ribbon flying into the air like some Chinese state circus demonstration run by midgets and a mad woman gleefully shouting 'Higher! Get it higher!'

3. Once unwound, encourage kids to wrap it round themselves and trail the ribbon along the floor behind them, tying Pooh bear at the end if desired, so that he bumps along the ground, looking sad.

Thus far, I have secured three objectives. The first is to create as large a space around my own family as possible - to hell with everybody else, let's face it, I'm a parent - so that I never lose one of the kids in a crowd. The second objective is to extract, while inconveniencing everyone, as many Ooo's and Aaah's from every other traveller as I can muster. There, you see, they are smiling at this sight, three little beings with their penguin trots, wrapped in ribbon and tugging their toys, how cute is that? Ha! Complicit in their own oppression they are disadvantaged, delayed, and I can steam on to the head of the queue, trailing piglets and poohs and hippos in my wake. Third, and this is practical, is that the kids, by tying ribbon around themselves, have actually made handles and reins, so that you can grab them if they are in danger of wandering off the track.

If you are really lucky, of course, the kids will tie each other together, and their animals, and find this hilarious, or insulting, depending on the mood. Then they make so much noise that Mr Spooky will never dare snatch one and you can hear them even though they have run off to Terminal 1 and you are in Terminal 2.

Well, sadly, we don't have to do this stuff anymore while travelling to Dubai at age seven. Because this is big girl stuff. So we insist on public display of favourite cuddly toy strapped in special harness to wheelie bag, cute clothing, neat hair, and a ready supply of jam sandwiches.