This was a strange one. Madam (what? I can’t have more than one name for her?) has always done her own thing. Her mother has corrupted her terribly over music (I now live with two Take That fans) but I’ve kept my stuff to myself. While The Lady of the House has no qualms watching Friends or Hollyoaks (I think she’s their oldest viewer) while Madam struts about, I normally watch the likes of Doctor Who once the children are asleep, mostly for the very selfish reason that I’d rather be playing with the kids than watching TV with the kids.

But, as I say, in she comes from the sleepover and is suddenly dying to know everything about Amy Pond (and I think the Scottish accent has helped with identification – that and the fact that show had a very young Amy Pond), so we watched what there was and that was that.

Then, she went to one of her other set of grandparents (four sets in four different houses. We collect grandparents like others collect Pokemon) and discovered the BT Vision box had all of the recent stuff – and she’s devoured it and now goes through phases of “Doctor Matt’s better than Doctor David” or vice versa. I tried her on the pilot ep of Doctor Who from 1963 and while she sat through it, safe to say that was a watch too far.

But what I really didn’t expect was the crossovers with Disney and anything else lying about the room. So we now have scenarios where the Doctor, Amy, Rose, Martha and Donna are all sitting in the dolls’ house, along with the similarly sized Disney Princess figures of Belle, Cinders, Snow White, Jasmin and Ariel when their mum – Madam herself – comes in and tells them all its time to get changed for school.

Of course, on the way to school they all get kidnapped one at a time and locked up in Lego jails and this goes on until the mum herself comes in Godzilla style and saves the day.

And then off they go to school, where Amy normally gets sent home for moaning that the Princesses have changed their clothes (the wee dolls have multiple outfits) and she can’t. Of course Amy then throws a bigger strop when she gets home and the Doctor’s changed faces!

And while it’s all good fun it is frightening to see how much a child can really devour entertainment wise if you leave them unchecked – and how much they remember. I’m hoping she never asks to go to a con (unless it’s Comic Con, that could be fun) or asks to listen to the swearing-loaded Thumbcast SF/cult telly podcast.

Three other things I’ve learned from Doctor Who toys

1. How much for a River Song doll on eBay? Glad she doesn’t want the screwdriver…
2. The BBC really have no concept of what the right toys to release are so they?
3. Toy Tardises – just how damn hard is it to wrap something as a gift when it’s bigger on the inside than the outside?

Well you’ve just no luck have you? Most girls – IIRC – get to the age of 16 before going to a bash or a party and discovering they have the same outfit as someone else.

You? Age 5. Place: School Halloween Disco.

Not one, not two, but THREE Dorothies from the Wizard of Oz (and two of you with the same outfit from the same shop). I mean what do you call the plural of a Dorothy? Dorotheees? Dorothi? Bunch of table cloth dresses? Actually what’s the collective noun as well? An Ozful of Dorothies? (next year you can all go as munchkins or the crazy monkeys – you’re all the right height for that and it doesn’t matter if you match).

Of course it wasn’t until you came back that I discovered you had mascara and lipstick on – and got a tattoo when out. I think all that was missing was you having a hangover and a boy’s phone number…That reminds me I didn’t actually check your wee Toto basket…

The double whammy was that we had a beast of a spider on the bathroom wall and you missed that as well. But I took a pic for you as I know you like these things.

Pictures as always taken with the iPhone 3GS

And another pic I noticed after you had gone to bed was what you had posted outside your mum’s room:

I know you aren’t meant to put stickers on the wall (and in fact I think this is the first time you ever have) but you can get a pass for that one. Don’t think you’re getting the iPod Touch that you’ve started asking everyone for though. You can play the games on mine.

And no, you can’t have driving lessons either.

• There’s concern over your eyesight after your mum spotted you squinting at reading materials. If your eyesight is throwing in the towel, expect war over how close you sit to the TV and how much of it you watch

ALSO EXPECT ALL BLOG POSTS TO BE THIS SIZE SO YOU CAN READ THEM FURTHER AWAY FROM THE SCREEN

• And I know you think glasses and contact lenses are cool/fun. They’re not and bad eyesight can seriously screw up your life: did you see who your mum married?
• Halloween was a hoot with you, though I stress to add that a) if you go out as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz ever again, you carry Toto. If I had to look after that mutt for one more minute I was reporting you to the RSPCA for (fake) dog neglect and b) on Halloween you can take sweets from people, it’s the one night ‘no thank you I haven’t had my dinner’ is not the appropriate response.
• And don’t start me on you getting to wear mascara and lipstick – even if Dorothy did have them on in the film. You don’t see me dropping houses on the witches that you know “just because it happened in the film” do you?

(And well done on tip-toeing upstairs to avoid us hearing you dodging the naughty step. You forgot though that you keep needing to tip toe once in your room.)

And would you please start putting a filling on your sandwich for school? Bread and butter are not the two main food groups. Honestly, doing that in Carntyne would have had the social work out in the 80s, so god knows what others make of it.

Anyway, it’s Friday now, so no lunchbox today. It’s ‘homie’ day as you kids call it now.

So, as I mention in the recent Thumbcast podcast (with a very liberal dash of swearing) that you recently had a school play for Christmas and you were a tad dejected about being a reindeer (Cupid) and not part of the nativity.

Until you pulled together the words to the popular tune of “I’d rather be a XXXX than a XXXX” except your version was “Oh, I’d rather be a reindeer than a Jesus, Oh, I’d rather be a reindeer than a Jesus, yes I’d rather be a reindeer, rather be a reindeer, rather be a reindeer than a Jesus.” And then you went off into a second verse with different words but I couldn’t hear you as I was on the floor howling with laughter.

You’ll have all sorts of issues with religion as you grow up (the joys of living in the West Coast of Scotland) but if you keep your sense of humour about you, I think you might just do OK. Of course what you said the next day, was almost as blasphemous.

ps – sorry Jesus

Of course, being five, you are also totally obsessed with death (what is it with five year olds and death? Does the Scottish teaching curriculum have lessons on gothery or something?).

Anyway, there was some mirth the other day when you told me that you thought you had worked out what had happened to Jesus.

“Daaaaaad, you know you said that Jesus was killed on the cross because he annoyed some people? Was he put on the naughty cross? And they forgot to bring him down so he could say sorry so he dead?”*

(*if you aren’t a parent, you won’t get this. It’s a play on the naughty step concept devised by Supernanny)

And I tell you, if nothing else, it’s given me some thoughts for how to do a new take on a kid’s version of the bible…

The bed had stayed in the box for the simple reason that you haven’t had any sleepovers yet, but you wanted to try it – and it would need tested before going anywhere or having someone stay on/in it – so that seemed fair enough. I didn’t realise you would take to it as if it was surgically grafted to you, sitting on it for watching TV, taking it upstairs and then wanting to sleep in it every night.

The one good thing about it is that when you’re in it, you’re sleeping all night. No cries for a 3am cuddle off me, so perhaps it’s laced with Calpol or something. But I can’t work out why you like it so much? Is it that comfy or are you being a little High School Musical brand fanatic?

I just hope you aren’t going into school and telling everyone that you have a travelbed and it’s the best thing you’ve slept on. God knows what the school would make of that. I can just see parents’ night now: “oh yes, we’re very progressive parents. When she’s well behaved we feed her. And if she’s really good, we even let her sleep on an inflatable bed. When she’s naughty? Oh, we have an Iron Maiden for that.”

A bed. I can’t believe it.

After writing about your love of your inflatable Disney High School Musical bed your mum and I were concerned about you sleeping in it every night – and you certainly didn’t like me reminding you that it was for travel or guests. But at bedtime you pulled out a classic line that guarantees you a trip to the bear-making shop soon (or perhaps even a trying to arrange at least one of the holidays you want this year*): “Can’t get cuddles off Dadda in Disney bed. Go into big bed to get cuddles from Dadda as Dadda cuddles best.”

You even managed to sound sincere.

Sleep tight.

* Madam’s 2010 holiday requests: Back to Florida to DisneyWorld and Universal (if I could squeeze in the last NASA Space Shuttle launch I wonder if this could count as educational?),Portaventura again too and weekends at Alton Towers and Blackpool. Not asking much…

(I’m just amazed I stayed awake. Normally a sleepy cuddle from madam puts me out as well.)

(And yes, all attempts at getting the thumb out of the mouth have failed spectacularly as you can see.)

We’re both educated in various religions and the thought is if the children want to pick one when older and fully informed, they can. It’s their choice and we’re not brainwashing them (of course, living in the West Coast of Scotland so adds to that challenge, but that’s a post for another day).

Anyway, despite going to a Protestant non-denomenational school, which you would imagine teaches all faiths (as long as they are Protestant) we had our first major hiccup with the Muslim faith the other day…

Dear Daughter has weekly swimming lessons (and she’s not bad, can’t swim in a straight line to save herself though) and two of her wee pals there are lovely little girls raised as Muslim. The mum – from Lanarkshire – is a great mix of Muslim faith and Scottish practicality, so we all get on fine and fab, though I’m sure to some halfwits in this country, even speaking to someone who can spell Muslim marks you out as a terrorist sympathiser.

Anyway, last weekend, the girls were pointing out that they receive chocolate eggs – as you would for this time of the year – but they get to eat them before Easter Sunday because they don’t believe in Easter (a simple explanation is here but basically Muslims don’t believe Jesus was killed on the cross or resurrected as such.) which quite intrigued madam.

Fast Forward to Easter Sunday dinner and she’s speaking about how the girls got to eat their Easter eggs early “because they don’t believe in Easter and that means Muslims don’t believe in the Easter Bunny so they get to eat their eggs early.”*

Now, I always thought these kids you hear of who think Christmas is about Santa and so on were a wild myth, but now we have it that Easter is all about the Easter Bunny (come back next year when we do the Stations of the Cross and crucifixion with a bunny.)

On the one hand, parent me finds it hilarious (as does agnostic boy) but the part that’s about knowing your culture/other religions is mortified (what makes it even worse is that she was at church with the school on Wednesday. Clearly paid a lot of attention there then).

I think it will be Mel Gibson’s The Passion instead of Muzzy tonight…

* The writer in me was mortified at her leap in logic though: if they don’t believe in the Easter Bunny surely they shouldn’t receive eggs as there’s no bunny to deliver them. That’s what she should have been asking…

I kiss her forehead gently as she murmurs a little. I wonder where five years went and wish they had been in more slow-motion.

I go next door and the other lady of the house is also out like a light, trying to get some restful sleep to take the strain off her sore legs and back. Again, all cosied-up like a hamster, but she’ll wake up in the middle of the night a few times before giving up the ghost around 6am, but between now and then there should be some respite. I don’t lean over to kiss her forehead because if I wake her up there will be hell to pay.

And inside her sleeps and dreams a little bundle of something. For you the world is always quite dark still (your mum probably shouldn’t have work so much navy and black all the time), but it’s warm – cramped, but warm. I have no idea what your little dreams are like – probably of somewhere you can stretch without hitting organs – but I hope they’re nice and I hope they let you know you’re loved. Failing that, I hope you feel loved.

It’s not a wild Saturday night by any definition – in fact it hardly has a pulse – but seeing you three, still, content, at peace. I’ll take that tonight. The wind can howl outside and it can stay there. In here, it’s tranquil sleeps for all.

Sleep tight the three of you.

It wasn’t a hardening or anything, but it was almost as if a part of you just went into focus, as if internally you realised that this is a bit of a gamechanger, that you aren’t the baby any more and there’s a new baby coming along.

It was almost, on some level, as if you became aware of your mortality, but you’ve always been quite OK with Death as a concept (going as far as to ask your mum if you can have her jewellery when she’s gone) so I don’t think it was anything like that.

I came over to make sure you were OK and you said you were, but your wee hands – to me – seemed that little bit longer, more defined with lines, with life.

I put my hand over yours and we listened to the tune for a while before going back to looking at furniture. Nothing played It’s A Small World, but that’s OK, because for you it shouldn’t be.

That or you were totally playing me.

Either way, when you come home, the garage has been demolished. I wonder if I can convince you that it was because you were naughty for something…

*I never saw much of your Grandad when I was growing up, but there was this one time – when I was about eight – that access had been agreed and I got into the back of his car along with his new family and promptly burst into tears. And I just remember him saying ‘it’s alright, I’ll see you when you’re ready’** which at the time I never gave much thought to, but after seeing how asshole some parents are about divorces, was quite a cool move.

**Of course, that being ready would be nearly another decade and a bunch of shenanigans inbetween involving tabloid media and so on, but that’s a tale for another day.

One joy that we found clearing out the garage, getting ready for the extension work, so you two have decent living space, was the old Calvin and Hobbes books that I bought (some for me, some for the then girlfriend) and it was one of the things that your mum and I both agreed were going to stay – and then I found this new, rare interview with the author.

Yes, we have the heavier-than-a-Transmogrifier special three-volume hardback (top present from your mum) but there’s something about keeping these originals for you to play with as well – and no doubt colour in with crayons – and I hope they make you laugh and gasp and more importantly than that, make you wonder and imagine and never stop exploring – either yourself or your surroundings.

And the books are back in boxes – for now – but it was good to hold them and remember back to the guy who was terrible at doing his hair, who wanted to write books, who kept girlfriends waiting while he read a bit more about the noises scientific progress made. He thought he had a good imagination, but he never imagined the fun you two would bring along. But he did have the good sense to remember all the best lines from Calvin’s dad when you ask questions about the world being black and white.

Your mum can read you the hedgehog story though.