For a couple of weeks now, the girls have been shouting Bah Diddy at frequent intervals. We’re pretty up to speed with most of ‘their’ words for things – ‘Bubbies’ is their word for Teletubbies for example. Until very recently, Humpty Dumpty was ‘Huddy Duddy’. Sadly, ‘Orse is still horse (and ‘ouse = house and ‘at = hat, and so on…) – I spend my days at home shouting HORSE, HOUSE AND HAT, with special emphasis on the H.

However, Bah Diddy baffled us both. It didn’t seem to refer to an object as such, wasn’t a name for someone and wasn’t a ‘doing’ word.

A trip to the supermarket yesterday solved the mystery. As dh and the girls were leaving the shop, they started pointing and shouting BAH DIDDY! BAH DIDDY…

…at a Bob the Builder ride-on machine.

To test the theory, I dug out dh’s CD single of ‘Can we fix it?’ (which, to the uninitiated, is the dance version of the Bob the Builder theme tune) You may be wondering why a grown man, far to old to have enjoyed Bob and his adventures as a child owns the song. HE would tell you that he bought it to keep Westlife off the Christmas no. 1 slot. If I tell you that his Mum bought him a Bob the Builder soft toy for his 22nd (yes, not 2nd – 22nd) birthday, I think you’ll see that there is a slightly different slant on this story.

Anyway, I popped the CD into the stereo (once I’d dusted it off) and pressed play. Cue two VERY excited little girls (and one man old enough to know better), leaping up and down and shouting BAH DIDDY!

Now, the girls are very particular about the television programmes they watch. Teletubbies is a favourite. They will occasionally watch In the Night Garden (erk) and have been known to sit through an episode of Pingu. To my knowledge, they haven’t ever watched Bob the Builder, so how to they know a. What it’s called (sort of) and b. The theme tune?

Dh remembered that when he dropped the girls of at nursery recently, they were dancing to CDs, so I’m guessing that they also have the single – that, or they wheel out the television when the parents aren’t looking (which, bad mummy that I am, wouldn’t blame them for doing for half an hour a day) and allow the children a bit of cbeebies time (I’m not actually suggesting for a second that they do this). Also, their bff at nursery had a Bob the Builder themed birthday party so if he talks about it, the girls will probably pick it up from him.

The next step is to find some episodes on the BBC iplayer or Youtube and see if they’ll actually watch them.