Hannah: Daddy, you know when you’re a grandad…
Lauren (interrupting): Will you be a grandad or a grandpa?
Me: Oh… a grandpa I think.
Hannah: Why?
Me: Well, in my family we’ve always had grandpas and in Mummy’s family they’ve had grandads. So I’d like to be a grandpa.
[pause]
Lauren: What about our husbands?
Hannah: Yeah, will they be grandpas or grandads?
Me (after a short think): They can be whatever they want to be, girls.

We never did get to hear what Hannah started to ask me. As ever, I’m left thinking that a bit of forward planning is commendable, but all things in moderation.

The other night they were late to bed and I was having to use Strict Dad Mode to achieve the desired result. I gave Hannah a kiss and a cuddle then told her to go straight to sleep. She nodded and snuggled down. But as soon as I turned round to Lauren’s bed a muffled singing noise struck up behind me.

I spun back round to see Hannah with both hands clamped over her mouth. “I’m sorry Daddy!” she pleaded. “I’m trying to stop singing but I just can’t!”

Anyone who’s seen The Sound of Music will realise you’d have to be a Mother Superior with a heart of stone to try and separate a girl from her singing, so I dropped the Strict Dad act and left her to it. Ten minutes later they were both fast asleep.

As you can see, Woofy was born with a funny ear that sort of folds inwards, and no amount of fiddling with it can make it go the right way round: it always manages to tuck itself back in again.

Recently Hannah told us that in order to get a good night’s sleep you need a healthy supply of “wishes”. If you run out of wishes, that’s when you start having bad dreams. “And that’s why I love Woofy,” she said. “Because he keeps lots of wishes in his ear pocket.”

I honestly wish I could say I make this stuff up using the power of my imagination, but I don’t. You just can’t beat the real thing.

Hannah wrote this questionnaire this morning and got me and Nicola to write in our answers. I suspect we were biased.

The answers to the obvious questions were:

1. “Oh yeah, it’s meant to say ‘world’.”
2. (Regarding the cactus-shaped object) “Er… it’s a bogey!”

“I don’t want to tell you,” she said. And then, after a little pause: “But in Cinderella it says that dreams can come true, but that isn’t true, because it’s just a film.”

“I wish I had a phone like that.”
“You don’t need a phone, sweetheart, they’re only for grown-ups.”
“Where did you get it from?”
“From a shop.”
“Did they have another one exactly the same?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well when I’m a mummy can you take me to that shop and show me so I can buy that one?”
“What a terrific idea. Of course I can.”

It’s lovely to think I’ll still be needed. An extra bonus point to the first reader who can correctly identify the twin in question…

Hannah: When I grow up I’m not going to work in a work [=office], I’m going to work at home.
Me: Don’t you think you might get a bit lonely?
Lauren: Well, when I grow up, I’m going to be a dentist, because they always have someone there to help them. And I like giving out stickers.
Hannah: Well I’m going to be a dentist too so I can be with Lauren.

How lovely. I do worry that neither of them has thought through the less sticker-related aspects of the job, though, such as root canal work.

(Unfortunately, she used Lauren’s pink glitter pen without permission, and the subsequent ruckus did take the edge off the gesture slightly.)

A few weeks ago, Lauren announced that she was going to marry Daniel Lally because he’s “a lovely chap”. The next morning the two were inseparable in the playground before school, and over the following days Lauren took a number of love tokens into school for Daniel, in the form of drawings of them getting married and such like.

Within a few days, Hannah threw her hat into the ring and announced her intention to marry Daniel Lally. Happily it turned out that that was OK because Lauren had now set her sights on George Wadsworth. Daniel doesn’t seem to get much say in this, but then I don’t think he can tell them apart anyway, so he seems happy either way.

Since then, the girls have been round to their friend Emily’s to play, on which occasion Lauren was spotted creeping into Emily’s big brother Chris’s room and kissing him. The following day it was announced over breakfast that Hannah (yes, Hannah) is now going to marry Chris and Lauren is back to Plan A: marrying Daniel.

Understandably, we’re having a lot of trouble keeping up with all this. However, the subconscious mind is a great window into the heart’s desires, and on two occasions now we’ve gone to tuck the girls in late at night, to be informed by a sleeping Lauren that she’s “dreaming about Daniel Lally”.

Whoever said the course of true love ran smooth?