Is it possible to make your child that little bit too precocious for her own good?

Me: Sweetheart, please eat or you will fade away to nothing.

Her: Like Echo.

Me: Eh?

Her (patiently): Echo who fell in love with Narcissus and faded away to nothing but her voice.

Me: Oh right.

In the end I was glad that she didn’t eat anything because there was less to throw up. Oh dear, home again with three children, one of whom is pathetically sick, thereby precluding a trip out of the house. In view of this, I have chosen to wear tracksuit bottoms, ancient hoody type thing and scholl sandals with no socks. Oh yes, I am a tremendously appealing sight today. You will be relieved to hear that I did shower; it was easy, really, I put the boys sitting in bouncy chairs in the bathroom while the Princess retched over the bath.

On the plus side, this is an excellent way to spend my last day of maternity leave because it means that on Monday I will leap into the fray with added gusto. Last night I calculated that taking into account our prohibitive childcare costs and my four day week, there will be relatively little left in my monthly salary for fun (yes, I appreciate that I might have done this calculation a little earlier but where’s the spontaneity in that?). Mr. Waffle said encouragingly “well, lots of women in your position have no money over when they pay for childcare so think positive”. Hmm. I feel like some kind of government statistic. And I know that it is a false calculation because, even, if I didn’t go back to work, we would still have to have some kind of childcare to preserve my sanity and I understand that the cost of valium is prohibitive.