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…

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.

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…

So, as I mention in the cult 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

Anyway, you’re still sitting at least 5ft from the TV from now on – and watching it less too.

Anyway, I need to go and find your school socks. I never realised that the sock monster preyed on whole families (of course I beat the odds there by getting you to just buy me 21 pairs of the same black socks on a bi-annual basis), so I’m off to sock-hunting (and while I’m doing it I’ll change the lyrics of ‘Going on a Bear Hunt‘ to Sock Hunt.)

ps, sorry about crashing in beside you, but you always say you want more cuddles. And besides, blame your sidekick-to-be. Permission to bully has been granted.

* wonder if this gag will work in RSS readers…

• 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?

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.

On the other hand, well done on finally eating a full meal that didn’t involve chips, sausages, beans or mashed potato. Expect pasta bake every night for the rest of your life now…

Chef McGill

And here’s a pic.

Anyway, let’s see if you can sleep through the whole night for a change.

*notwithstanding the fact that you couldn’t tell the time three months ago.

(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.

When you find one, I’ll let you have a watch of a film in your bedroom. Deal and promise.

The main reason is that I think online should be their place  to go onto and discover as and when they want and it’s not up to me to put them online: they should have the ability to decide how much (and if) they want to be online. In the meantime I still get to blog about them and the people who know them – grandparents and so on who can’t do Facebook – can still check in here from time to time.

(it reminds me of a chat I had with Warren Ellis around the time Matt Fraction had his kid and we differed on revealing so much online. Warren felt that the sheer quantity of stuff put out by parents and others would swamp anything that prospective employers and so on might find, while I felt data mining would get better and besides, it was the kid’s choice as to how much was online anyway.)

All of which does beg one question: when this generation grows up, how are they going to take parents having posted chunks of details about their lives online? Even worse, there will be intimate details of their parents online…