Antonia is neither very well nor very sick. And it’s manifested itself as full-blown regression, as follows:

• needing to be rocked in Daddy’s arms – except he’s now forgotten the words of the rocking songs, so she had to sing them for him;
• cuddling up to Mummy – except she now reads blog entries and my emails over my shoulder which I’m not totally comfortable with;
• pretending she needed to learn colours, digging out her early childhood blocks and strewing them over the kitchen floor;
• typing random letters on the computer keyboard – except that now she’s too strong and at least one of the keys went flying off;
• having me dig the board books out of the cellar – except this time she seized them and read them to me;
• refusing to answer people’s questions – aaaaaghh! I really don’t need to see that one sneaking back, just a couple of weeks before the homeschool inspection.

Apart from that, it’s kind of cute, and I was happy to go along with it. I even tried to find her a Teletubbies to watch, but no, those are gone right out of our lives. Here are the board books we liked when Antonia was little. Nothing very original, but all nice:

• Moo, Baa, La, La, La by Sandra Boynton
• Peepo and Each Peach Pear Plum by Allen and Janet Ahlberg
• Jamberry by Bruce Degen
• Time For Bed by Mem Fox and Jane Dyer
• Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
• We’re Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxbury