Wrong Daddy

I was away for the weekend, and I came back to find that G's infatuation with Thomas the Tank Engine continues. This is her tonight after she'd been reunited with her favourite little train. This morning, before I took her to nursery, there were tears at the breakfast table when I told her she wasn't allowed to take him with her.

"I want Thomas!" she repeated, wailing plaintively. I was unmoved, but only because I have developed the instinct that parents have for this sort of thing. A typical toddler tantrum is over in a minute or so, but the kind of epic tantrum that would ensue if Thomas got lost at nursery, well, that just isn't worth thinking about. "Thomas will still be here when you get back later," I reassured her as we got in the car, to which I got a very doubtful look in return.

As I went to pick G up, I was walking down the corridor towards her room when one of the nursery nurses came by leading a little boy, who was black. "Daddy!" he said, pointing towards me, hopefully. "No, I don't think that's your daddy," she replied, with the air of someone who had already had to say the same thing several times, probably in quick succession.

I didn't wait to hear if she went on to explain precisely why I was unlikely to be related to him. Besides, this all demonstrates another truth of parenting that I have discovered: three-year-olds may be able to talk more, but they still aren't the best recipients of any kind of logic.