petite anglaise

Below is the picture drawn by Tadpole over lunch in a café last weekend, using my favourite book signing pen and a rather grainy, textured napkin. It prompted a lively discussion with The Boy, during the course of which I discovered that not only do the French have two different words for owl, but that one has tufty, ear-like appendages (the hibou, pictured), while the other (the chouette) does not. Who knew?

I suspect the inspiration for Tadpole’s picture came from the fact we are currently reading about Plop, the Owl who was Afraid of the Dark, at bedtimes, which is bringing back all sorts of lovely memories of reading the same to my baby sister, many years ago.

But it’s the other, cartoon-like bird on Tadpole’s picture that amused me most. Very Roger Hargreaves, don’t you think?

‘We’re making a “k” for “kite”,’ says Tadpole, her voice a half-yawn. This would be true if her bed wasn’t an extra short lit évolutif from Ikea, which I really should lengthen one day soon, as Tadpole is tall and willowly. My (shorter, stumpier - do I sound jealous yet?) legs are currently bent at the knee, so even if she is lying in a sort of sideways ‘V’ shape, with her bottom nestling against my tummy, we’re making a special sort of K. With a tail.

I glance at the Miffy wall clock, which reads 7.43. Almost half-time.

My morning routine (on weekdays) goes something like this:

7.15: Alarm clock sounds. It’s actually the alarm on my landline phone, and whenever I’m in a shop or restaurant that uses the same ringtone, it sends icicles down my spine.

7.20: I press snooze.

7.25: I press snooze.

7.30: I press stop.

7.32: I get up, walk along the corridor, raise the blackout blinds in Tadpole’s room, then climb into her bed.

7.32 - 8.02: We snuggle. She tells me what she has been dreaming about. Or I guess. It can be one of four things: mermaids, princesses, fairies or unicorns, so the odds are not exactly stacked against me.

8.02 - 8.25: She eats cereal, we get dressed, I drink my first Cloonette of the day.

8.25: We run to school, slipping inside just before the doors close, at 8.30.

I realise that this may not seem like the best time management policy, but try as I might, I can’t bring myself to change any of the above.

‘So, what did you dream about today?’ I ask, my voice muffled by her curls, which are also tickling my nose.

‘I did dream that I was a princess, in a castle,’ Tadpole begins. So far, so predictable. ‘And you were the queen, mummy… and grandma was the maid…’ Chuckling, I make a mental note to tell my mother about her demotion to the servants’ quarters. I wonder whether granddad made an appearance in Tadpole’s dream, perhaps as the court jester, but wisely hold my tongue. We will be visiting England in a few weeks’ time and Tadpole can always be relied upon to repeat precisely those phrases she shouldn’t. (’Mummy says I shouldn’t eat my spaghettis like that because I’m not a piggy like you.’ Ouch.)

But there is to be no mention of granddad. Instead, Tadpole swivels around so that she is facing me and we (almost) form a triangle. ‘In my dream,’ she says, looking at me intently, ‘my daddy was the king and he did live in the same castle as us.’

‘Did he now?’ I say, reflecting that although my daughter may not look much like me, we’ve both inherited the recessive subtlety gene. ‘But mummy already has a king, doesn’t she? And she can’t have two… I mean, I’ve never seen a castle with two kings in it, have you?’

Tadpole shakes her head, seemingly satisfied with my explanation. I glance back at the Miffy clock. It is only 7.53, but I decide to make breakfast early.

‘So,’ I enquire, ‘did the princess in your dream eat special K with chocolate pieces in for her breakfast?’

The Boy and Tadpole return from their pilgrimage to McDonalds. The Boy is looking disproportionately pleased with himself, far more so than the feat of having hunted and gathered a happy meal and a couple of burgers would usually warrant.

“What have you two been up to?” I ask, suspiciously, as I unpack Tadpole’s chicken nuggets and arrange them on a proper plate - which increases the nutritional value of the food tenfold, because it is no longer takeaway - and set the Asterix toy aside for later.

“We had a very important conversation, she and I, while we were queuing up to be served,” says The Boy, unwrapping his own dinner. “N’est-ce pas biquette?”

Tadpole nods, her mouth full of nugget. We’ve both grown used to being referred to as a “small female goat”, The Boy’s favoured term of endearment.

“Go on…” I say, wondering what on earth the terrible two have been plotting behind my back.

“Well,” says The Boy, pausing to bite, chew and swallow, enjoying keeping me on tenterhooks, “I asked your daughter if it was okay for me to marry you… It’s the done thing, you know, when someone already has children, to ask their permission.” I feel rather emotional all of a sudden, tears prickling the back of my eyes. What a lovely thing to do. Even if McDonalds wasn’t the venue I would have chosen for such a conversation.

“And what did she say?” I ask, wiping some ketchup from Tadpole’s chin with a serviette. I don’t think she has even heard our exchange. She’s selectively deaf at the best of times, but especially so when focused on food.

“She said that she thought it was a very good idea for us to marry ourselves,” the Boy replies. “And then we got talking about princess dresses and flowers, as you do… But when I said ‘you’re going to look just like a princess’, she said the loveliest thing…” He takes another bite, spinning out his story for as long as possible.

“I did say that it’s not me who will be the princess on that day,” pipes up Tadpole suddenly. Apparently she has been listening in, all along. “Because it’s mummy who will be the princess, not me. I’ll just be a little princess. Or a middle-sized. But you will be the real one, that day.”

I smile, under cover of my Royal Cheese, my eyes moist. “What a double act you are, you two,” I say, when I’ve recovered my composure. Then, turning to The Boy: “And what would you have done if she had said ‘no’?”

“When mummy gets married, I’m going to wear an extremely pretty princess dress,” Tadpole has been telling everyone who will listen. “And a tiara. And when mummy gets little bit busy, I’m going to help with carrying the flowers…”

Tadpole’s Disney Princess phase has lasted upwards of a year now, and shows no sign of abating. Given every self-respecting princess story culminates with a sumptuous ceremony, my daughter seems to have all sorts of preconceived notions of what my wedding day should be like. I do hope my strenuously low-key nuptials will not be a disappointment to her, when the time comes, but there’s no way I can stomach the idea of wearing a frothy white meringue, not even for my daughter’s sake.

A few days after my botched proposal, Tadpole returned from her New Year’s holiday with mamie and papy. I hadn’t yet had an opportunity to speak to Mr Frog, so sharing the news with my motormouthed daughter was a risky business. But one morning, when I crawled into her bed for our morning cuddle, I just couldn’t help myself.

“If I tell you something really, really exciting, can you keep it a secret?” I ask. There is a silence, and for a moment I wonder if she’s sleeping. I seem to have a knack for broaching important subjects when my listener is only semi-conscious. But Tadpole isn’t asleep. She turns to face me, her eyes serious.

“If it’s a secret, you have to whisper it in my ear,” she says. “Because otherwise somebody else might hear.” The only somebody else in the flat is snoring gently in the next room, fully aware of his impending marital predicament, but I humour Tadpole and snuggle closer to her ear.

“In a few months, I’m going to get married to …. ,” I whisper.

“Just like Ariel, in the Little Mermaid?” Tadpole cries, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates, the need for whispering apparently forgotten.

“Kind of like Ariel, yes…” I reply. “Although probably not with the same colour dress. Or on a boat.”

“I’m going to marry myself as well,” Tadpole says matter of factly.

“Well, yes, one day you will,” I say. “When you’re just a little bit older.”

“NO, NOT when I’m older, mummy! I’m going to marry myself with my daddy, on the SAME DAY as you.”

My daughter speaks with such fierce certainty that I decide not to contradict her, for now, and make a mental note to add Freud to the guest list.

To say that Tadpole rarely shares insights about her secret life in the moyenne section of our local maternelle would be something of an understatement. Invariably, on the way home from school, we have a conversation which goes something like this.

Me: “So, what did you do today?”

Tadpole: “Just some things.”

Me: “What did you have for lunch?”

Tadpole: “I can’t remember. But you can look on the computer, mummy, can’t you…?”

Which is why I was rather taken by surprise when she randomly launched into a playground anecdote over dinner yesterday evening. An anecdote which concerned a boy who was in her class last year. I am still at a loss to understand what caused the memory to surface just then.

“Mummy?” says Tadpole between mouthfuls of canneloni (from which I have scraped all trace of bechamel sauce, at her behest). “When I was three years old and I was in the other class at school…” - she holds up three fingers in case I need help understanding the concept - “…one day I did go in the playground with Youssouf while the other children were doing music.”

“Mmhm?” I repy, stabbing several green beans onto her fork, because for some reason, even though Tadpole is perfectly capable of feeding herself, she generally loses the will to eat after approximately five mouthfuls in the evenings and I have to step unwillingly into the breach.

“And I did ask Youssouf ‘tu es mon amoureux?‘ and he said ‘oui‘ and we did hold hands for a little while,” Tadpole continues.

I like the word ‘amoureux‘. The Boy often uses it when introducing me to a friend of his for the first time. I like to think of it as a combination of ‘beloved’ and ‘lover’ - literally it means ‘the person I’m in love with’. It’s so much nicer than ‘ma copine‘ (too impersonal, it could designate any female friend) or ‘ma petite copine‘ (even if I am used to answering to the name ‘petite‘). What the term ‘amoureux‘ implies to a four-year-old though, I’m far from sure.

“Is Youssouf still your amoureux now?” I enquire, setting down the fork for a moment.

“No. He did have the nez coulé and it wasn’t very nice,” Tadpole explains with a grimace. I freeze. Just how close did my daughter get to that runny nose of his?

“And, um, do you have an amoureux now?”

“I play with Dinah now,” Tadpole replies. “And Youssouf, he plays with Hicham.” This, I surmise, could mean one of two things. That their short-lived relationship was so traumatic that it drove both of them into the arms of a same-sex partner, or that amoureux, to Tadpole, simply means ‘best friend’.

“So, who is mummy’s amoureux?” I ask, keen to test my theory immediately.

“You have two,” says Tadpole, with a triumphant smile that means she is convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt she knows the correct answer. “Daddy… And Meg.”

I heave a sigh of relief.

It is a week in which I’ve already made two Paris-London-Paris trips on the Eurostar, complete with identical on-board meals of hachis parmentier and a very bland slice of bakewell tart on both Sunday and Wednesday evenings, and adjusted my watch five times (albeit a little slow on the uptake the day that daylight saving time was adopted, having completely forgotten).

On Thursday, Tadpole and I board a flight to Leeds. I pore over the in-flight magazine, wondering what my collection of loose change can buy us for lunch. I would appear to have exactly £7.70. Just enough to procure one “junior snack pack” and a still mineral water (for her) plus one packet of mini-cheddars and a coffee/kitkat combo (for me). Not the most nutritious meal, with not a hint of the requisite five servings of fruit or vegetables, but we’ve had worse. I wedge the magazine into the seat pocket in front of me and settle back in my seat, closing my eyes for a moment, waiting for the attendants to reach us.

Tadpole is studying the laminated safety card with fierce intent.

“Mummy?”

“Mhm?” I mumble, without opening my eyes.

“Why does a cross sometimes mean a kiss but sometimes it means ‘no, you CAN’T do THAT’? Those two things are not the same at ALL, are they?”

“I suppose you’re right,” I say, opening my eyes and leaning forwards to rummage in my handbag for moleskine and a pencil, nostils flaring. I smell a blog post in the making: Tadpole appears to be on fine form today. “So… what does it say that we’re not allowed to do, on the card?”

“It says no cigarette,” says Tadpole primly. “But that’s alright because me and you, we don’t fume any cigarette, do we?” I shake my head. “And it says no telephone…” she pauses and looks at me accusingly. “Why did you bring your telephone, mummy? It’s not allowed, it says it here!”

“Ah, I’m allowed to bring it, you see, but I am supposed to switch it off…” I fumble in my handbag once more and re-read my last message from the Boy, for the nth time, before complying.

“Why are those people going on a toboggan?” Tadpole wonders aloud, pointing at the picture of a landing at sea - I love the fact that there is a proper French word for this: “amerissage” which somehow makes it sound like something utterly banal and routine, and not at all like an exceptional emergency occurrence - in which several people are calmly gliding down an inflatable slide, minus their baggage and shoes. I decide not to evoke the possibility of planes falling unexpectedly out of the sky and mumble something implausible about people using slides when there aren’t any spare sets of stairs handy at the airport, instead. No sense in worrying her. Flying has hitherto been as natural to Tadpole as taking a taxi, and I wouldn’t want to change that. Pointing at the next picture, I lure her eyes away before she has time to register that the runway is blue and slightly squiggly.

“What do you think this one means?” I say, tapping my finger against a picture of an unfeasibly high stilletto shoe with a bold black cross through it.

“No princess shoes,” Tadpole replies with unshakable certainty.

Chortling, I reach for my pencil.

One of the reasons I have been feeling low since the school year kicked off in September (and yes, I realise this has had some incidence on the frequency of posting here at petite anglaise) was that for a few excruciating weeks, I became increasingly convinced that my daughter had been abducted by aliens.

Gone was the cheerful sprite I had entrusted to the care of the beaux-parents while I skipped off to Greece for two blissful weeks with the Boy. Upon my return, I discovered that a tantrum-throwing, insult-hurling stranger had taken Tadpole’s place. She looked like my daughter - the same blonde corkscrew curls, the same grey-blue eyes - but this little imposter had the power to tear my nerves to shreds, to cut me to the quick with harsh words. She awoke in a filthy temper every morning and greeted me with disdain - if not fury - when I trudged down the hill to collect her from school.

“Hello sweetie, did you have a good day?” I would say, my mouth smiling, but my eyes anxious, bracing myself for what was surely to come.

“I DON’T WANT to come home with YOU. I don’t like YOU and I don’t like YOUR HOUSE. I want to stay at SCHOOL!” Tadpole would reply, her mouth surly, her forehead crumpled. For added effect she also experimented variously with folding her arms, squeezing her eyes tightly shut while putting her hands over her ears to effectively shut me out, or clamping her hands tightly around the bench she was sitting on next to the Maîtresse so that I couldn’t prise her free and pick her up.

In response, I tried:

a) talking in wheedling tones about something “really fun” we would do when we got home
b) pulling a chocolate biscuit out of my handbag as bait
c) pretending to leave without her
d) threatening her with “no CBeebies” when she got home if she did not comply
e) trying to pick her up and carry her out of the school
f) looking askance at the Maîtresse to see if she knew of a magic combination of words which would make my daughter miraculously see sense
g) chasing her around the school hall under the amused gazes of all the assembled teaching staff
h) dragging her outside by force, my hand clamped around her right coatsleeve

Once we were outside, the trials were far from over. The rue de Belleville has never seemed so long, nor its gradient so steep as on those days when I had to climb it alongside a little person who insisted on walking in fairy steps, all the while screaming at the top of her lungs that I was not her friend and she wanted to go to daddy’s house, instead. She would frequently sit on doorsteps, or indeed the middle of the pavement and refuse to move while I stood, arms folded, a few metres ahead, trying valiantly to ignore her until she came to her senses.

By the time we got home it was not uncommon for me to shut myself in the bathroom where I would muffle my howls in the dressing gown which hangs on the back of the door.

She’s tired, I said to myself. She’s in a new class, with lots of children she didn’t know last year. She’s testing my limits now that we are reunited again after the holidays. Mr Frog and I compared notes on the phone, and I was a little reassured to hear that Tadpole wasn’t sparing him either. It’s just a phase, we mumbled soothingly. These things always pass. But my confidence in tatters, I found myself reading chapters from parenting books. I started to wonder if it was All My Fault. After all, the Boy had all but moved in since we got back from Greece. And even if Tadpole and he had always got on famously, could this new development have anything to do with it?

And then one day I went into Tadpole’s bedroom to wake her and, for the first time in weeks, she greeted me with a smile. The school run, that morning, was painless. When I kneeled by her side in the school hall, that evening, fishing in my pocket for a chocolate biscuit, she did not protest. A flicker of something mutinous darted across her face, just for a moment, but she seemed to brush the impulse aside, rising to her feet instead, and taking my hand.

Just before bed, as I bent to give her a goodnight kiss, she made her apology. “Mummy, I did do lots of bêtises, but it’s all finished now.”

I pulled her closer. “It made me sad, you know, when you were naughty every day. I didn’t understand what was wrong… But it doesn’t matter now. Let’s just be friends.”

“I love you, you know,” Tadpole said, her mouth so close to my nose that I could smell the toothpaste on her breath. “I love daddy more, because he is big, and you are only middle-sized… But I do love you quite a lot.”

Padding back into my bedroom, I saw a green light by Mr Frog’s name on gmail.

“The aliens have returned our daughter, safe and sound!” I wrote. “Halle-fucking-luja…”

from Mr Frog
to    Petite Anglaise
date 19 Sep 2007 21:16

subject Quote of the Day

“Aujourd’hui dans la cour de récréation Matthias il nous a montré son zizi…. C’était très rigolo.”

I chuckle aloud, paste the quote into my ongoing MSN chat with the Boy (his response: “let’s hope Matthias is a four-year-old”), then file it in my brain under “things I musn’t forget to use one day in a blog post”.

Several days later, Tadpole and I are in the unisex, open plan changing rooms at the kids’ swimming pool we visit on Sunday mornings. When we first began frequenting the pool, I used to manoeuvre myself into my underwear with embarrassed awkwardness, under cover of a huge towel. Then one day I realised that normal rules didn’t apply here. Something about the fact that we are all parents, surrounded by young children, rubbing the sleep from our eyes and wishing that we were at home with a steaming mug of coffee and a newspaper, makes casual nudity even more asexual than a nudist beach in Greece.

Tadpole sits on the bench, swaddled in a hooded towel, wearing an extremely disgruntled pout. Persuading her to leave the pool had not been easy, and involved my resorting to a whole spectrum of parental behaviour - wheedling, promises, threats, pointless lengthy negotiations, raised voices - approaches proscribed one and all by the child rearing manual Mr Frog pointedly lent me the other day. Our altercation culminated in the tenth “I’m not your friend” of the day (it is midday), followed a dose of the silent treatment (a blessing in disguise).

Suddenly Tadpole’s eyes widen at the sight of the small child opposite, and she opens her mouth to speak, her fit of pique instantly forgotten. “Mummy! That girl has got a zizi! Why has that girl got a zizi?”

I sneak a glance at the child in question - male, without a shadow of a doubt - and consider how to respond. Probably best to keep things simple. Conversations about gender reassignment can doubtless wait until she is a little older. “Well,” I say slowly. “We know that only boys have zizi’s, don’t we? So that means it must be a boy, not a girl.”

“But mummy, she had the voice of a girl!” Tadpole protests with a crumpled brow.

“Little boys’ voices are often just the same as little girls’ voices,” I reply. “But if you see a zizi, it’s always a boy. That’s how you can always tell the difference between boys and girls, ladies and men…”

At this, Tadpole gives me a very strange look. In her opinion, I have taken leave of my senses.

“No!” she says emphatically. “My daddy doesn’t, any more. Maybe he did have a zizi when he was a little boy, but then he growed up and it disappeared.”

“I think you might be wrong about that honey,” I reply, the corners of my mouth twitching. “So, when we see daddy later, perhaps you should ask him…”

Tadpole and I are making our way home from “daddy’s house”. We make excruciatingly slow progress, as she insists on pulling her Miffy wheelie weekend bag along herself rather than letting me carry it. My eyes are riveted on the pavement ahead so that I can give advance warning should we encounter anything unsavoury left behind by a pigeon, dog or human.

Grinding to a halt at a pedestrian crossing, Tadpole suddenly becomes very excited at the sight of a teenage girl across the road.

“Wow! Look mummy! That girl has really red hair! Absolutely exactly the same red colour as the Little Mermaid!”

I take my eyes off the traffic lights for a moment and obediently take a look. The girl in question, striding away on the opposite pavement, has dyed her hair an unnaturally deep red, a cross between the claret colour so often favoured by Parisian café owners when choosing their awnings and my own crimson bedclothes. Uncannily similar to Tadpole’s Little Mermaid doll’s dishevelled mane. A colour which looks better, in my humble opinion, on fabric than on hair.

“Oh look, the green man!” I say, changing the subject and grabbing Tadpole’s free hand.

Later that evening, as I pull a wide-toothed comb through her damp ringlets (amusingly called “anglaises in her father tongue), I make the mistake of doing my thinking aloud. “We really must go to see a hairdresser sometime,” I say. “If we cut your hair just a little bit, then it will grow thicker, and longer.” I’ve been saying this for the past two years, ever since Tadpole’s hair finally deigned to begin growing in earnest, but somehow we’ve never got round to it.

“Mummy?” says Tadpole, turning to face me, her brow furrowed, “when you go to the see the hairdresser, sometimes the hairdresser puts some colour, doesn’t he?”

“Well, yes,” I admit. “I sometimes make it a little bit blonder, because it used to be light like yours, but now it’s darker…” I can almost see the cartoon lightbulb flickering to life above my daughter’s head, and have a sudden inkling of what is coming next.

“So when I go to see the hairdresser, can he make my hair a different colour too? Because I would like to have really really red hair like Ariel’s!”

I pause, wondering how to respond, then a phrase falls from my lips which somehow I never expected to find myself using quite so soon. “Not until you are at least sixteen years old, young lady! Your hair is very pretty just the way it is!”

“But mummy,” protests Tadpole with a sullen pout I find eerily familiar. “Sixteen years old is in a long long long time.”

Combing duty over, I pull myself to my feet and lead the way through into the bedroom.

“Hell yes,” I mutter under my breath.

Tadpole scowls at me across the dinner table. She hasn’t touched her food, despite the fact that I let her choose the dinner menu. Instead she pushes it around her plate listlessly, scattering baby peas and grains of rice onto the tabletop. Every few seconds, it seems, I have to ask her to refrain from pushing with her legs against the wall (after an incident earlier in the day when she ended up on the floor, howling, with the chair on top of her).

My patience, if I could see it, would probably resemble the ketchup on the table in front of me. A few dregs remain, coating the sides of the squeezable plastic bottle, but they are congealed and almost impossible to reach.

I spent the best part of the afternoon standing on a stepladder and scraping paint off the bathroom ceiling with a kitchen spatula. Flakes of slightly soggy paint collected in my hair, fell down the front of my dress, and welded themself to my arms as I scraped. Occasionally, when I pierced a water bubble, a trickle of water ran along the spatula, down my arm, and into the crook of my armpit, making me shiver.

The upstairs neighbour didn’t even have the good grace to look sheepish, let alone apologise, when the plumber sent by the copropriété concluded that a leaking tap in his apartment was the cause, and not the communal downpipe which runs through our bathroom wall. It will probably be months before I manage to get the requisite quotes to fix the warped window and fill in the pitted ceiling and have them approved by his insurance company. The drip drip drip had gone uninterrupted for two whole weeks while Tadpole and I were away in Yorkshire. Perfect timing.

Now my head is throbbing, an insistent dull pulsing which echoes the drip drip drip in the bathroom as the last of the water works its way through the ceiling, and the glass of wine I poured myself a few minutes earlier does not appear to be helping.

I heave myself out of my chair and curl up in a ball on my bed. Tadpole appears by my side and puts her face close to mine. I open my mouth to ask her to sit back down again, then close it. She has begun stroking my forehead, ever so gently, and it is so soothing, I don’t want her to stop.

“What’s matter mummy?” she says softly. “Are you ever so slightly extremely tired?”

“Mummy?” says Tadpole, seconds after the front door closes behind “mummy’s friend”.

“Yes?” I say, hand poised to squirt ketchup onto a slice of baguette, in readiness for a much needed fish finger sandwich.

“Have you got a baby in your tummy yet?”

I flinch, and the ketchup misfires, liberally coating the worktop.

“No sweetie, I don’t have a baby in my tummy…” I say slowly, once I’ve recovered my composure, setting down the ketchup and crossing my fingers. “Why are you asking me that today?”

“Because mummy, when I said that I wanted a sister or a brother, like Anna at school, you said ‘maybe when you’re six years old’. And I’m already four years old. And after twenteen more sleeps I will be five, and then six…”

I sigh, and resolve never again to bow to Tadpole’s pressure to put a time limit on everything. Future events are always measured in sleeps in our household. And she has an alarming habit of remembering throwaway comments made six months or more ago, deliberately glossing over the word “maybe” and then repeating them to me with a “but you said as though I’d made some sort of legally binding promise.

“You know,” I say suddenly, with a sly smile, “daddy could make you a brother or sister. Maybe you should talk to daddy about this, too.”

A problem shared, I think to myself, picturing Mr Frog’s face, is a problem halved.

“Look at my little girl!” I say, handing Mr Frog the cake box over Tadpole’s head and motioning to him to hide it in the kitchen. “She’s four years old!” Tadpole executes a coquettish little twirl in the turquoise dress I bought the day before in an Indian shop, with its silver thread and sequin detail. Any dress with a skirt big enough to curtsey in finds favour with my daughter these days. But god forbid I try to dress her in any sort of skirt which doesn’t have “corners”. That will simply not do. At all. And as for trousers, well, we simply don’t go there.

I had staggered down the rue de Belleville earlier that morning, leaving a mojito scented fug in my wake, and collected the Chinese sponge and whipped cream monstrosity I had thankfully had the foresight to order several days earlier. Now, complete with garish Disney princess decorations purchased on my last trip to England, it is suitably hideous. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Tadpole will approve.

“But mummy,” says Tadpole frowning, “when I did wake up this morning, I was not more-ler bigger! My legs are the same. My face is the same. My hair isn’t longer. I can’t be four years old yet. Because when I’m four years old, I’m going to be extremely big. Much biggerer than this!”

“Ah,” I reply, looking askance at Mr Frog, who shrugs and peers inside the cake box, his face registering first horror, then amusement. I dig inside my jeans pocket and hand him four glittery Barbie candles in nauseous shades of pink and purple, then turn back to Tadpole, my head spinning. “Honey, did you think you were going to be all grown up when you woke up this morning?”

Tadpole nods.

“Well,” I say reasonably. “Nobody grows that quickly.” A sly smile spreads across my face as I realise I can turn this to my advantage. “Especially not little girls who don’t eat their vegetables. Because no one can grow if they don’t eat green beans, and carrots and broccoli.”

“You’ll never guess what happened to me last night,” I call to Mr Frog, who is busy melting candle ends in the kitchen with his lighter and sticking them in the plastic holders I have already inserted into the icing. “I got asked if I wanted a student rate on my way into a club. Imagine?!” I for one am not looking forward to the birthday when I suddenly begin looking my actual age overnight. I take a step into the kitchen.

“Don’t come any closer,” says Mr Frog sharply, “you’re probably flammable!” Clearly the lashings of perfume I applied and half packet of chewing gum I’ve put away this morning have masked nothing. “Let me guess. Rum? Mojitos?”

At that moment, Mr Frog’s parents appear at the front door, his father brandishing a bottle of champagne. My stomach lurches at the prospect of alcohol, reloaded and I begin to feel light-headed.

“Hair of the dog,” I mutter under my breath as a generous flute of bubbly is put into my reluctant hand. “And don’t you dare translate that,” I caution Mr Frog as he sets down the cake.

“Wow!” says Tadpole, her eyes like dinner plates. “Qu’est-ce qu’il est beau, mon gâteau…”

At least, I think to myself, taking a celebratory swig of champagne and managing to stifle my grimace, my horrorshow cake was worth the considerable effort I had expended that morning.

Maybe I’m not such a bad mummy, after all.

“Look mummy,” says Tadpole. “I did draw a picture!”

I study the picture dutifully. “Is it a witch?” I say. “Like Meg from Meg and Mog?”

Tadpole shakes her head. “No. It is mummy when she is very fâchée. With cross arms like this.” She demonstrates by putting her hands on her hips.

I try not to show how horrified I am to see myself in this new and disturbing light.

Next week: mummy with a terminal hangover. Which is worse than this.

This post is dedicated to Uncle Norman, author of this rather sparsely punctuated comment on my last “post”: “Stick to writing about your kid and being shagged in work time leave real life to the grown ups.”

So, I’ve written about my daughter, which is a start, and just leaves his second request. Anyone fancy distracting me from my deadline today? Conveniently, I’m working on my bed at the moment (although one end is currently propped up with Le Petit Robert.) So?

Tadpole’s latest obsession is with Lauren Child’s Charlie and Lola.

After the prolonged agony of her Dora the Explorer phase, hearing Tadpole trying to mimic characters with proper English accents comes as a profound relief. And there is something about the way Lola is drawn, with unruly hair falling across mischievous eyes, which reminds me of Tadpole.

The books have names like “I am not Sleepy and I will not go to Bed” or “I am absolutely too small to go to School” or “My Wobbly Tooth must not Ever Never Fall Out”, and cleverly deal with a lot of the issues toddlers have, like having their hair cut (Princess No Knots) and eating vegetables (which seem to go down a whole lot better when you say they are from Jupiter).

If I might put in a couple of requests though, Lauren, would you consider writing “I will not Ever Never wear trousers to school” or “I am absolutely too small to do my poo poos in the toilet”?

Our latest game is to speak in the style of Charlie and Lola - I am, of course, always cast in the role of Charlie - her sensible but wily older brother - and usually end up saying “but Lola!” rather a lot.

Yesterday Tadpole came out with the following gem, which still has me sniggering this morning:

“I am absolutely ever never good. And sometimes I am naughty”

“They used glue?” exclaims the doctor in horror. “That’s very unorthodox indeed.” I grimace, and wish I’d omitted to mention the part where Tadpole fell in England, struck her face on an English manhole cover (which apparently is what happened - my friend went back to the disaster scene), and got fixed up by an English nurse.

“Yes, they used glue,” I say, “and I’m just hoping the wound is tightly closed, but I can’t really tell, it kind of scabbed over in the night and the swelling seems worse.”

“Well, I don’t mind taking a look if you want to bring her in,” the doctor replies, “but you’d be better off going to casualty and asking a surgeon to inspect the wound. Mind you, they might turn you away, because it’s no longer fresh…”

I sigh. A potentially futile morning spent hanging around in casualty it is. I don’t really mind, it’s not like I can work while Tadpole is home from school, deadline or no deadline. When I call Mr Frog to ask him for Tadpole’s carte vitale, he offers to come along too and I am grateful. In stressful situations his quiet insistence tends to be more productive than my short temper.

The urgences pédiatriques at Robert Debré children’s hospital are en travaux. The waiting rooms are freshly painted in turquoise, orange and butter yellow, but there are no toys for children nor coffee machines for adults. Mr Frog sneaks off for a cigarette, and returns brandishing coffee. Tadpole is pretending to read her Disney Princess magazine, her brow furrowed in concentration. Apart from the fact that the right side of her lip is about three times its usual size and covered with dried glue and scabs in various autumnal shades, she’s as right as rain.

“Vous m’entendez?” says a woman’s voice, loud and clear over the PA system. “It this thing working?”

“Indeed it is,” I reply, although we are in a separate waiting room, far from the main desk, and my feedback is not actually being sought.

“Rentrez tous chez vous et arrêtez de nous embêter!” says another, lower voice. The assembled parents exchange amused glances and I accidentally snort some coffee down my nose. “What?” the second voice says frantically. “You mean it works even when the button isn’t pressed down?”

The doctor tuts as he examines Tadpole’s face. “We never use glue on lips in this hospital,” he says. “Stitches are better, because lips swell and the wound can weep.”

“Is there anything we can do to improve things now?” I ask cautiously, not really relishing the idea of slicing the wound back open and pinning Tadpole to a table, but terrified that she will be permanently disfigured.

“No, no, it’s more than six hours old, nothing I can do here… It might be fine, it looks clean and dry. We just would have done things differently, that’s all.”

He hands back Tadpole’s carnet de santé and returns to typing something at his keyboard as I lift my daughter down from the examining table, biting my own lip.

“Oh well, I suppose it was worth checking,” I say to Mr Frog as we gather up our bags and jackets and make for the door.

The doctor looks up from his screen. “Yes, he says, “but what a pity she didn’t fall over in France.”

“Aw, look at the two of them holding hands,” my friend exclaims, as Tadpole and my friend’s younger daughter - both dressed in gauzy pink fairy costumes - walk ahead of us with her dog, their feet crunching on the gravel. Her elder daughter catches them up, and the three advance together as one, picking up speed. The sun is shining, although it has no real force yet. I feel more relaxed than I have in weeks.

“This weekend’s done me so much good.” I quicken my step as the girls round a bend in the track and move just out of our line of vision. “It’s so nice to get away, and lovely to be in the countryside…”

“Well you can come whene…”

She is cut off mid-sentence by a chorus of wails. We sprint forward, expecting to have to mediate for the twentieth time that day between three squabbling fairies, or, at worst, to tend to a grazed knee. But when I see Tadpole’s face, I am horrified.

The blood gushes. I don’t know, at first, where it is coming from. She has the mouth of a vampire in a gore movie. Blood pours down her chin, soaking her pink dress, turning it a vivid crimson red. The metallic taste makes her gag and spit. Blood drips onto the gravel, soaks into my t-shirt, and huge droplets spatter my jeans and trainers as I hoist Tadpole into my arms and stagger back to my friend’s house, mercifully close.

Parking Tadpole on the kitchen counter by the sink, I hold a cup to her lips and she rinses her mouth. Her teeth all appear to be intact, although there is a nasty cut inside her cheek. But the worst thing, the thing I can barely look at without gagging, is the split in her upper lip, on the right hand side. A deep slice exposing dark, purple flesh, like raw steak.

We arrive at the small injuries unit in a nearby town twenty minutes later and I lead Tadpole, still dressed in her blood-spattered fairy outfit, into the reception area. “The St Albans fairy chainsaw massacre,” says my friend wryly, leading her two little fairies inside. I manage a weak smile, but my hands are shaking and I feel nauseous and light-headed. While my friend does everything in her power to prevent Tadpole from catching sight of her face in the huge mirror next to the children’s toys, I speak to the lady at reception. It is all I can do to form a sentence, and I find myself unable to spell out my daughter’s name - my brain isn’t functioning well enough - so I scrawl it illegibly on a piece of paper. I explain we were supposed to be flying back to Paris in three hours time. That, plus the fact that Tadpole’s appearance is going to give everyone in the waiting area nightmares for weeks to come, bumps us straight to the top of the list.

“How did this happen to you?” says the nurse to Tadpole, shining a light in her eye. I’ve already given my explanation, and open my mouth to repeat my story before I realise with a sickening jolt that she is cross-examining my daughter on purpose, to eliminate the possibility that it was I who caused her injury.

We emerge, ten minutes later. Tadpole shows everyone the “I’ve been brave” sticker the nurse gave her, which she has slapped onto the front of her blood-spattered dress. Her lip wound has been gummed closed with surgical glue, and I pray it will hold. I glance at my watch: we have just enough time to nip back to my friend’s home, change out of our ruined clothes and grab our bags.

On the plane, Tadpole spies drops of blood on her shoe.

“I’m sorry mummy,” she says, stroking my forearm. “I did spit on our clothes and I did make a terrible mess. I didn’t mean to. It’s all my fault.”

“Oh gosh, it’s not your fault my love,” I say, mortified, “It was an accident. And I don’t care about any clothes! Mummy is only sad because you have a bobo she couldn’t fix. I try to keep you safe, and sometimes I don’t manage to. You were my brave little girl today…”

When the seatbelt signs go off, Tadpole raises the armrest and lets her head fall into my lap. A few minutes later she is asleep. I stroke her hair, my hands still shaking, and try not to worry about the fact that drowsiness is one of the concussion symptoms mentioned on the leaflet the nurse pressed into my hand as we left.

I glance at my watch. 5.30pm. Time to leave the “office” and take myself off to Mr Frog’s house. Tadpole has returned, finally, and it’s time to down tools, scoop up my girl and take her home.

It’s been a tough week. The weather has been unseasonably warm for April but I’ve mostly been indoors, working long days on the manuscript. I was feeling a low, unsure of myself, and it took me a while to realise that the real reason for my despondency was that I missed Tadpole and all the little routines centred around her which give essential structure and purpose to my days. Mornings are no fun when I can’t slip into bed beside her and scratch her back (”not like that, mummy! With les ongles“) or battle over which clothes she should wear (”not a pantalon! Hanna says she is only my friend if I do wear a jupe!”) Without bathtime, bedtime and stories the evenings are formless and dull. I flounder. I skip meals, forget to brush my hair for days on end. Without a little person to care for, I stop caring altogether, least of all for myself.

The cafés on rue de Belleville are overflowing onto the pavements. Girls in spaghetti strap tops, wearing sunglasses, with their shoulders sunburnt. I blink stupidly in the sun. My office looks across a shady courtyard filled with blossoming trees. I am unprepared for the heat, overdressed, I’ve left my sunglasses at home.

“It’s me!” I say brightly into the intercom, my heart doing somersaults in my chest. Mr Frog buzzes me inside, and I race along the corridor to the lift. There is giggling behind the door - Tadpole is no doubt peering at me through the spyhole, in Mr Frog’s arms - then the handle turns, and the door swings open.

At the sight of me, Tadpole’s face falls. “Je veux rester ici” she cries, darting across the room and diving under daddy’s desk, her face flushed and contorted with anger. “I don’t want to go with mummy! I want to stay here, with daddy!”

Her frosty welcome has knocked the stuffing out of me, and tears prick my lowered eyelids, but I sit down quietly on the sofa and accept Mr Frog’s offer of tea. There is a part of me that is so hungry for affection that I want to pick her up and hug her senseless, against her will. But there is nothing for it but to wait until she comes around. She’s had a poor night’s sleep, Mr Frog explains, and a tiring train journey. She’s not being intentionally cruel. However much it can seem that way.

Twenty minutes later, I set down my empty tea cup and gather up her clothes. “They’re all clean,” says Mr Frog. “My mum washed them, to save you the trouble.” I transfer the neatly folded pile from his holdall into a plastic bag, and stoop to fasten the buckles on Tadpole’s shoes. Her tantrum now forgotten, Tadpole is suddenly eager to hit the road.

“Come on mummy,” she says, tugging at my t-shirt. “It’s time to go!”

Outside Mr Frog’s building I pause to assemble the buggy. Tadpole isn’t far off her fourth birthday, and I stopped using it months ago, but Mr Frog insisted on taking it on his trip so since I have it, I figure I might as well stow the bags inside and push them home. Tadpole sits patiently on doorstep, watching me as I flip down the catch with my toe.

I hear a flapping of wings high in the trees above and a viscous green liquid rains down, splattering the front of my dress, the pushchair and both the inside and the outside of the plastic bag containing Tadpole’s (no longer clean) clothes.

I freeze, my expression hovering somewhere between disgust and disbelief. Tadpole claps her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide.

“Ca porte bonheur, il paraît, says an elderly woman as she limps past, leaning heavily on her husband’s arm.

“Easy for you to say,” I mutter darkly, fumbling in my bag for tissues. “You’re not the one covered in pigeon juice.”

I sit down on the step by Tadpole’s side, dabbing gingerly at my dress.

I suppose I should look on the bright side. My daughter is back, and my bloggers block has finally lifted.

Laden with bags, Tadpole and I leap onto a number 26 bus. I still have my carte intégrale - despite it being surplus to requirements most of the time because I now walk to work, and school, and only take public transport about twice a week - because there is no weaning me off that addictive drrriiinging sound said card makes as I swipe it over the scanner. But we still clamber onto the bus using the middle doors, along with the fare dodgers and women with pushchairs. We’re not going far, and this way it will be so much easier to get off again.

Right on cue, the driver plays a pre-recorded message asking people to refrain from entering the bus by the middle doors. For good measure he also plays a message which exhorts everyone to move along to the centre of the bus in order to make more room. We have broken one rule, all the better to comply with another, I think to myself. Perfectly reasonable behaviour.

“I going to show daddy all my new clothes!” says Tadpole excitedly. Shamed into action by Mr Frog’s remark the previous day about how most of Tadpole’s long-sleeved t-shirts barely graze her elbows, we’ve been on a spree at Du Pareil au Même. The bag I’m clutching is filled with garishly patterned cotton skirts and brightly coloured t-shirts, as well as a term’s supply of hair clips. Every day Tadpole leaves for school with a clip holding her curls out of her face, and every evening she emerges sans barrette. Somewhere in that school there must be a huge vat full of hair accessories, but whenever I’ve broached the subject with her teacher, she shrugs her shoulders and purses her lips.

“Hold the bar tightly with both hands!” I say sharply, just as the bus slams on the brakes at a zebra crossing and nearly sends Tadpole flying. But her left hand appears to be otherwise occupied, rummaging in the back of her trousers; her brow is furrowed with concentration.

“But mummy!,” she says indignantly, “I need to help her to escape!”

“Help who to escape?” I lean forwards to try and establish just who, or what could possibly be imprisoned inside Tadpole’s trousers.

“Ma culotte! She’s prisoner! My bottom is eating her!” Tadpole explains, switching into French, all the better to entertain our fellow passengers.

I should probably pitch in and help liberate the pants, or at the very least correct Tadpole’s use of pronouns, but instead, I just giggle, bend to plant a delighted kiss on her cheek and say: “Oh? And is she tasty?”

****

Slightly more serious posting over here, if you fancy joining the debate.

Tadpole sniffs heartily as we trot along the pavement in the direction of home. I feel around in my coat pocket for a tissue, but draw a blank. Permanently unprepared for any eventuality whatsoever, that’s me. No wipes for if she dives head first into a crotte, no umbrella should it rain, no tissues for sniffles or tears, no spare clothes for accidents, and my mobile phone battery is resolutely flat. My fingers are permanently crossed instead, but somehow - touch wood - we seem to get by.

“Mummy” says Tadpole in her ‘I’m about to say something extremely profound which changes the way you see the world around you’ voice. “When my nose gets sniffy. That’s because the winter, it does get stuck in my nostrils.”

Well that’s one way of looking at it. And not a worldview I feel equipped to challenge, as my powers don’t extend to explaining airborne viruses and bacterial infections to a three-year-old. That little pearl of wisdom doesn’t top my favourite quote of the weekend, however. Which I love, even though I don’t really understand it. “I had a dream,” said Tadpole that morning. “Not a dream in my eyes, but one inside my head. We can have two different sorts of dreams, can’t we mummy? Head dreams and eye dreams.”

I glance at my watch. Six o’clock. Plenty of time to get ready before the babysitter arrives at eight, as long as Tadpole shows some mercy and remains moderately compliant throughout. Although the check-list of “Things to Do Before the Babysitter Arrives” is long. Going out on a non-Tadpole free night can be something of a military campaign.

In no particular order, I must:

• Feed Tadpole (cook nutritious meal and somehow ensure fruit and vegetables are eaten using carefully dosed combination of distraction/persuasion/coercion/threats)
• Bath Tadpole
• Tidy flat (abridged version involving throwing piles of things into wardrobe and closing doors)
• Wash up and empty decidedly whiffy kitchen bin
• Log out of my profile on computer and put it into guest mode to avert possibility of snooping and cookies inadvertently taking sitter directly into bank statements/blog backend/gmail
• Hide manuscript
• Put away Tadpole’s toys
• Hide my toys
• Agonise over what to wear to vagina-themed birthday party (don’t ask)
• Supervise Tadpole’s making of home-made (non vagina-themed) birthday card
• Write down contact numbers and dig out spare house keys
• Get changed
• Apply make up
• Text door code to sitter who always forgets it

7.45 finds me at the end of my tether. Every single familiar gesture of our evening routine has been a battleground. Tadpole ate precisely four forkfuls of dinner. She splashed water all over the bathroom floor while I hastily applied make-up. She is now running around naked, refusing to have her teeth cleaned or don her pyjamas. I am dressed, and in between yelling threats and promises I am fiddling with my hair, spraying on perfume. My shoulders are sagging. I wonder how I will muster up enough energy to take the métro and actually spend four hours making small talk at a party before the clock strikes one and I leave before my carriage turns into a pumpkin/my babysitter’s bedtime.

At 8.00, when the doorbell trills, we are ready. Tadpole is sitting on her bed with her library book, the only French book in the house, her mouth minty fresh, patiently waiting for the babysitter to come and read her a story. I am ready, my bag packed with drink, present and card, money for taxi/babysitter. I did it! Against all odds. Cinders shall go to the ball.

I glance at myself in the full-length mirror and do a horrified double take.

Those tights, those magic tights I pounced on in Monoprix which make slightly wobbly tummies disappear, with their “control top” panel? Bad idea. My tummy is flat as can be, there’s no arguing with that. My bottom is also reined in to great effect. But where the controlling part bottoms out and my thighs begin? Oh dear god. I now have saddlebags. Second hips located halfway down my thighs as though there has been some sort of subsidence. It’s too late to re-think my entire outfit. And I don’t have any other black tights to hand.

There is nothing for it but to haul my two pairs of childbearing hips out on the town.

I am woken by the sound of insistent tapping at my bedroom door. It is 9.10 am on Sunday morning. My clothes are in a sorry heap at the foot of my bed, my head is pounding and the light which floods into my bedroom from the hallway when I open the door sends me reeling back to bed again, wincing in pain.

“I’m really sorry, honey, but I’m feeling poorly and I’m not going to be able to take you to the swimming pool this morning,” I say. Just speaking makes me feel pitifully nauseous; I’m amazed to have managed such a long sentence without mishap.

To her credit, Tadpole doesn’t complain or say “but mummy, you promised!” Instead, she retreats to her bedroom and returns brandishing her (pink) plastic doctor’s kit.

“I going to make you feel better,” she says firmly and takes out the tools of her trade, one by one.

• A bizarrely phallic looking thermometer, which makes me gag when she shoves it in my protesting mouth.
• A pink and yellow stethoscope, which she seems to think has healing properties if positioned just so (on my right nipple) with maximum pressure applied.
• A pair of pink tweezers, used for pinching the patient’s nostrils.
• A pair of purple plastic scissors, with which she pretends to cut my fingernails. (If real, Tadpole’s rather haphazard technique would leave me with nothing above the knuckles.)
• A pink syringe, which she presses painfully into my wrist.

“All better now?” enquires nurse Tadpole, who has finally run out of toys. I make a mental note to look for the pink plastic scalpel, which appears to have gone missing. Also, when I’m feeling a little more coherent, I should try explaining that the implements in her doctor’s bag are for diagnosing what is wrong, rather than healing the patient. But today I do not feel equal to such a task.

“I feel a little bit better,” I say wanly, feeling both very sorry for myself and extremely foolish, in equal measures. I need no doctor to tell me exactly what is wrong, nor where it came from.

“Oh. Well if you’re not better, I going to do it all again.” She reaches for the thermometer.

It is torture, pure and simple, but I can’t help thinking I deserve it, so I offer no resistance.

I took a vow on Sunday. Never again will I drink a drop if I’m supposed to be spending the next day with Tadpole. No amount of fun can ever be worth such pain and self-loathing.

I glance anxiously at my watch. It is 8.27. School drop-off time is between 8.20 and 8.30, and the small but perfectly formed tantrum Tadpole threw just as we were poised to leave the flat - when I so foolishly dared to insist she wear a scarf to ward off the biting cold - has cost us dearly. If we don’t get a move on, I will be one of the latecomers, those wretched folk who scuttle past the directrice, head down, shoulders hunched, to escape the full force of her withering stare. I quicken my pace, and Tadpole breaks from a trot into a canter in order to keep up with me.

But when we reach the slightly surreal Chinese shop which sells wedding dresses and ball gowns which wouldn’t look out of place at a Jordan and Peter André wedding, Tadpole grinds to a stubborn halt.

“Look mummy! Princess dresses!” She tears her hand free from my grip and gestures excitedly at the window display. A particularly unattractive frothy pistachio number catches my eye and causes me to shudder, involuntarily.

“I like the white ones better,” I say, pointing towards something marginally more tasteful. “Those dresses are for weddings. Just like in the Little Mermaid, you remember, when Ariel marries her prince?”

Tadpole nods. “Yes, I know mummy.” This is her new favourite phrase, designed to shame me into silence if I over-explain things in a patronising tone, and terriblement efficace.

I grab her hand and we hurry on. I dare not look at my watch. I’m simply banking on the fact that it may be one minute fast.

“When I’m a big lady,” Tadpole says suddenly, “just after my tooth gets wobbly, I’m going to marry a prince as well.” She has a slight obsession with wobbling teeth at the moment, courtesy of a Charlie and Lola episode entitled “My wobbly tooth must not ever never fall out”. I have assured her that there will be no wobbling before she is six years old, but she seems to have decided that grown up teeth equals adulthood.

“Hmm. Maybe a little while after your teeth start wobbling, but yes, I’m sure you’ll get married in a pretty dress one day,” I say brightly, although I feel like I’m sucking on lemons.

“Yes, I’m going to marry a prince. Daddy is my prince,” she says with absolute certitude.

Will someone who, unlike me, actually reads all those parenting manuals and knows about the phases little girls go through be kind enough to reassure me that this is a Perfectly Normal Phase?

Please?

Tadpole’s most prized gift this Christmas was not one of the carefully selected educational toys I ordered from the wonderful Fnac Eveil et Jeux catalogue. Nor was it the Princess Barbie or the stable of my little Ponies she received from her French grandparents, or indeed anything from the sack of presents which awaited her in the UK (although the sack itself, it has to be said, was a great success).

No, Tadpole’s favourite new toy is a Little Mermaid Barbie, with glittering removable turquoise tail, a purple plastic strapless bikini top (which falls off, baring her breasts, approximately ten times a day) and a mass of unlikely, blood-red hair. She found “Ariel” on a recent visit to the bio-parents’ house, amongst a tangle of Barbies and Sindy dolls of all shapes and sizes which used to belong to my bio-cousins and, given that she had already seen the Disney cartoon of the same name, there was absolutely no way we could leave the premises mermaid-less.

The Little Mermaid used to be my favourite fairytale, once upon a time, never failing to make me shed a tear. I owned a dark red hardback collection of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales - sadly I have no idea where that book is now - and when the Disney version saw the light of day many years later, I refused to watch it with my little sister on the grounds that I objected to the making of a sanitised version with that obligatory happy ending.

My Little Mermaid had to make huge, painful sacrifices to walk on the land. Every step she took felt like walking on the sharpest knives. Her voice didn’t transmit itself to the wicked witch by means of a pretty ball of light flying from her throat; her tongue was brutally severed. And of course at the end of the story, when her prince marries another woman, she is given the opportunity to return to her life as a mermaid if she stabs him through the heart with a knife provided by the witch, a deed which she refuses to do, casting herself into the waves instead and becoming a spirit of the air, condemned to live in some sort of strange limbo for three hundred years, after which she will go to heaven.

That I remember all of this is a testament to how much I loved the original story, because in general I have a terrible memory for books. I’ve read too many, too impatiently quickly, and occasionally start a new one only to realise part way through that I have read it before.

Tadpole, however, is in love with the pain-free Disney version, in which the mermaid gets her prince and everyone lives happily ever after, and if I let her, she would watch it from start to finish every single day. At night, long after the lights are out, I hear her singing the Mermaid’s song, pausing to adopt the voice of the wicked octopus witch to boom “keep singing!”, then switching back to the sweet song of the mermaid once more. In the morning, when I wake her, she waves her legs together as if they were joined and says “mummy! Look at my tail!”

She’s got it bad.

Which is why I really shouldn’t have been surprised when she began using the Little Mermaid to get her own way.

“I can’t eat this dinner,” she said, as I placed a plate of fish fingers and vegetables on the table before her.

“Why not?” I asked in puzzlement. “Those are your favourites!”

“Because I’m a mermaid,” she said gravely. “And mermaids don’t eat other fishes.”

It took a few minutes of negotiation before I was able to overcome this hurdle. Suffice to say that mermaids apparently like nutella very much indeed and are willing to compromise their principles to obtain it.

As we walked home from school the next day, I quizzed Tadpole, as usual, about her day. I don’t usually obtain a very clear picture of what went on, but a few tidbits are enough to satisfy me. Those bruises on her knees, for example, were caused by Jules who pushes her over in the playground and apparently climbs on top of her, although she assures me it is a game and she doesn’t get hurt. The splotches of red on her t-shirt the other day came from the lasagne she had for lunch.

But on this day Tadpole was unusually silent.

“What on earth is the matter?” I said. “I’m asking you a question, it’s rude not to answer!”

Tadpole shook her head and gestured silently at her throat.

“You’ve got a sore throat? Shall we go see the doctor?”

Tadpole shook her head.

“Well what then? Come on, tell me what’s matter.” I came to an abrupt halt on the pavement and dropped to her level, refusing to go a single step further until she told me what was going on. With a sigh, she pulled back my long hair to expose my right ear and began to whisper.

“The wicked witch stole my voice!”

I’m starting to wonder if those éveil théâtral classes I was going to sign her up for next September are really such a good idea, after all.

As I stumble out of the lift which takes me to the first floor of Mr Frog’s apartment building, I rub sleep from my eyes and curse Mr Frog’s friend under my breath. “I’m helping someone move house tomorrow,” had been his parting shot as Tadpole placed her hand in his and they turned to leave, the previous evening. “You’ll have to come by at 10 am to pick her up.” I groaned at the prospect. Despite my good intentions, it was my first night back in Paris with my friends and there was talk of going on to a party after dinner.

Cut to Sunday morning: predictably, I am sluggish and irritable, a band of pain tightening across my forehead.

I press Mr Frog’s intercom button, pretending not to notice the twitching of the concierge’s curtain opposite. I look at my watch. 10.09. Not bad going, all things considered. Particularly in view of the fact that I had set my alarm for 9.55.

There is no reply.

I sigh. There are two possibilities here: either Mr Frog and Tadpole have popped out to the local baker’s for pain au chocolat, and I narrowly missed them as I dragged myself from my house to his, or, the more likely explanation, they are both still asleep. The blinds on Mr Frog’s bedroom window are scarily efficient, letting not even the merest chink of light through, and Tadpole consequently sleeps later here than anywhere else.

The next ten minutes are spent alternating between buzzing the intercom and calling Mr Frog’s mobile, which rings and rings before playing his voicemail message. I wonder how long I have to stand there before the concierge will actually stop her covert surveillance and come out to ask me if she can be of assistance. Her unseen presence is the only thing which prevents me from sliding down the wall and putting my head in my hands and rocking back and forth like crazy people always seem to in films.

Suddenly the door buzzer sounds, and I am in. I take the second lift, combing my fingers through the dreadlocks which seem to form at the back of my head when I sleep, and perfect my pained “you got me out of bed for nothing” expression in the mirror.

“Hi,” says a sheepish, pyjama clad Mr Frog. “I was asleep. I was dreaming that there was someone at the door…”

“I see that,” I reply drily. “She still asleep?”

We tiptoe into Mr Frog’s bedroom, where Tadpole is gently snoring, as she always does when she has a cold. Mr Frog strokes her cheek, and I take a seat on the floor by her bedside. It occurs to me that the last time we woke her together was at least eighteen months ago. I hope she won’t be too confused when she wakes.

By the time we have given her time to “come ’round” and Mr Frog has showered and breakfasted, it is 11 a.m. I spend much of the hour lying prostrate on the sofa, examining with some interest the undercarriage of a Christmas Princess Barbie, who has flesh-coloured, high-waisted pants covering her modesty. Textured underwear which forms part of her plastic body, and which may never be removed. I furrow my brow, trying to remember whether Barbies had chastity pants in my day. Meanwhile Tadpole dresses herself, putting her t-shirt on back to front, omitting pants altogether and getting her jeans back to front.

There are tears when we leave, which not even the promise of a trip to the baker’s for breakfast can banish. “I want to help daddy’s friend move house,” protests Tadpole. “I can carry the very small things…”

I pick up my own small thing and kiss her tears away. Something tells me it is going to be a long day.

I am sitting in bed, watching episodes of Desperate Housewives back to back and feeling sorry for myself. Despite the Christmas tree sparkling winsomely in the corner of the room, I have never felt less festive, or more hungover. That’s what happens when you go to a party for grown up singles on Christmas day, instead of more traditional activities such as watching the Top of the Pops Christmas special in the front room of your parents house, or sulking when your mother refuses to put any alcohol in her Christmas pudding. Grown up + singles = unfeasible amounts of drink. My liver is determined to find me a boyfriend. It’s an act of self-preservation.

The phone vibrates on the bedside table, almost making me jump out of my skin.

“Hi there,” I say to Mr Frog. “I was just thinking about phoning you. I need to think about plane tickets for the February holidays…”

“Already?” he replies. He never did understand my impulse to organise things in advance. “Well, er, that’s not why I’m phoning. My Doctor friend just stopped by to see Tadpole and I have some news.”

“About that little scab on her head?” I ask, puzzled at his rather ominous tone of voice. There has been a crusty patch above Tadpole’s right ear since she caught chickenpox back in November. It was taking a while to clear up, so I’d suggested to Mr Frog that he might want to show it to his friend if he stopped by. “Right, well, what did he say?”

“Well… it wasn’t healing right, and he actually cut off the hair around it and opened up the wound. So now she’ll need to wear a compress and a bandage around her head for two weeks…”

“A bandage? For two weeks? For a scab the size of a one euro coin? Why on earth? Was it infected or something?”

“Well, I don’t think so, but he did prescribe a week of antibiotics. And a special gel…

“Jesus,” I say, choosing my words with festive care. “Why didn’t I take her to the doctor’s earlier? I feel awful now. But it looked dry and fine and I was just expecting it to fall off any day now…”

“Hey, it’s not your fault…”

I replace the receiver.

So, the pictures of Tadpole’s Christmas this year will feature her head mummified in bandages, perhaps with a tiara perched on top to cheer her up.

And the in-laws have just spent the holiday with the gauzy white evidence of my neglect staring them squarely in the face.

Roll on 2007, things can only get better.

We arrive at school, breathless as usual. French maternelles have a ten minute drop-off window in the mornings, ours being between 8.20 and 8.30. Latecomers must brave the Paddington stare of the stern looking directrice and the tut-tutting of her faithful assistant, so I do everything in my power not to incur their wrath. Not always easy when your toddler is capable of ripping off her own clothes at 8.15 if she suddenly decides that they are neither pink nor flowery enough.

We hang Tadpole’s coat on the hook bearing her picture (it trails on the floor, surely she isn’t that tall?) and I glance at the noticeboard. My turn to take in yoghurts for the morning snack tomorrow. And in January, there is a class trip to the cinema for which parent volunteers are required. Mr Frog mentioned at the weekend the possibility of participating. I smile to myself. Clearly he didn’t notice that the trip is scheduled from 8.30 to 12.30. Suffice to say he is not exactly a morning person.

I weigh up the pros and cons of helping out myself. Obviously I choose my own working hours, so that isn’t a problem. And it would be nice to have an opportunity to cosy up to the teachers a little and show willing. On the minus side, I can think of little more nerve-wracking than accompanying 25 under 4’s on the métro. I take the felt tip pen which is stuck to the wall with a ball of blu-tack (a misnomer, French blu-tack is yellow) and add my name to the list. I stop short of adding Mr Frog’s, but I won’t say I didn’t consider it.

As we enter the classroom, I see one of the parents handing the teacher an envelope. I freeze. Suddenly the whole thorny subject of étrennes - which I had thought would be less complicated this year as I no longer employ a childminder - rears its ugly head. Am I supposed to give the teacher a card? A present, even? I have no idea if special treatment is frowned upon in the egalitarian paradise of French state schools, or whether, like in other spheres of the French civil service, bribery and corruption are the done thing. I have four days to find out. Advice welcome.

Tadpole takes her name card from the door and places it on the board between those of her two current best friends, Hannah and Luce to signal that she is present. Her friendships change every single day. The laws of the playground apparently change little, regardless of the passage of time or the country you live in.

“Mélusine, elle m’a dit qu’elle n’est plus ma copine!” she told me as we left school on Friday afternoon. She didn’t sound particularly traumatised by the fact, I have to say.

“She’s not your friend any more? Why?”

“Because Luce is my friend now.”

You can’t beat three year old logic.

“And what about boys? Do you have any friends who are boys,” I enquired mischievously. It hasn’t escaped my attention that a very attractive young blond boy with a twinkle in his eye always prances up to Tadpole when we arrive in the morning and takes her by the hand to the reading corner. His name is Jules. It is one of the names I had picked out for Tadpole, had she been a boy.

“No, I don’t like boys,” said Tadpole emphatically.

This morning, as usual, Jules approaches with a smile. Once Tadpole has given me my quota of four kisses and two cuddles I turn to the teacher for a quick chat.

When I turn to wave goodbye, I see two blond heads bent over a book.

I haul Tadpole out of the bath, wrapped in not one, but two towels (one large bath towel to swaddle her adequately, and one baby sized one which she still is rather attached to because it has a hood with ladybirds on). Sitting on the toilet seat, I cradle her in my arms, savouring the moment.

“Mummy, can I be the petit chaperon rouge?” says Tadpole.

“If you’re little red riding hood, who am I?” I ask, knowing full well what the answer will be.

“You be the wolf, and I ask you the questions.”

I thought as much. I growl, although I think the sound I make is more bear than wolf. Not that I’ve ever met either, of course. The only wildlife I have seen in Belleville are pigeons, cockroaches and dogs.

“What big ears you’ve got,” says Tadpole, stepping into character.

“All the better for hearing you with!” My gruff voice (usually reserved for Gruffalo’s and Wild Things) makes Tadpole giggle.

“What a big nose you’ve got!”

I rub my nose against hers. “All the better for sniffing you with!”

“What big eyes you’ve got!”

“All the better for seeing you with,” I say, rolling my eyes.

I gnash my teeth, certain I know what is coming next. Tadpole looks up at me, a mischievous smile on her face.

“What big spots you’ve got!”

I stop, mid-gnash, the wind abruptly knocked out of my sails, and put a finger up to the small pimple on my chin, to see if it has grown since I last consulted the mirror. Tadpole’s smile falters for a moment as she waits to see how I will react.

“I’m not a leopard,” I reply, eventually, with forced joviality. “I’m a wolf. Wolves don’t have spots!”

This evening I have been mostly turning my flat upside down looking for the referral my doctor gave me for a dermatologist when I came off the pill. Over-sensitive, moi?

The alarm goes off at 7.15 am. I groan, and press snooze. Today is admittedly less painful than yesterday, when I got a OuiFM wake-up call at 6.55 am and then had to speak to some chirpy, wacky and thoroughly annoying radio talk show presenter for five minutes while lying semi-comatose in bed in my undies.

I am not a morning person, you see. All those proper writers who say they do their best work at dawn, well, what are they on? Personally I function best in the afternoons, or occasionally in the evenings, once Tadpole is in bed, a glass of wine within easy reach of the computer.

At 7.35 am, I finally stop hitting snooze and muster up the enthusiasm to go and wake Tadpole. Creeping into her bedroom I watch her for a moment. She is deeply asleep, on her tummy with her head wedged up against the wall, as usual. She has been busy in the night: the dolls she took to bed with her yesterday evening are now stark naked, their clothes scattered on the floor. I pick a pair of knitted pants out of the (empty) potty by the side of her bed.

Whispering her name, I muss her curls and feel the warmth of her neck against my fingertips. She grimaces in her sleep, eyes firmly closed, then stirs, before shifting her position slightly and going back to sleep. So, pulling the covers back, I slip into bed beside her (a manoeuvre which involves bending my legs as the bed is a special lilliputian version) and cuddle up. This is my favourite part of the day: the snuggling, the warmth, the sleepy smell of her body and pyjamas, the fact that she is too comatose to actually protest and wriggle out of my arms. It’s perfect, except for one little detail.

I’m lying slap bang in the middle of an enormous wet patch.

“Darling,” I say when she finally opens her eyes, determined not to sound cross, or accusing. “You’ve had a wee wee in the bed. Were you sleeping? You know I put the potty next to your bed for when you feel like you need to go…”

“I had a dream about a monster,” Tadpole replies. I’m not sure if this is an explanation, or just her way of avoiding the subject at hand.

“I’ll have to wash the sheets now, and get those trousers off you sweetie, can you sit up for a minute?”

“But mummy?”

“Yes?”

“It doesn’t matter because you put the special cover on the mattress yesterday.”

I did indeed. I bought a quilt (for Mr Frog’s house) and a waterproof sheet (for mine) so that we could prepare for nocturnal potty training, round two. Tadpole had watched me fit the waterproof undersheet, and seemed to be paying attention when I patiently explained what it was for. Clearly I was mistaken.

“But darling, that’s for if you have an accident, but you still need to do your wee