It’s pointless to rail against Thomas...

IN the park the other day, the little girl on the swing next to us had a really runny nose. Her dad leaned forward, with perfect timing, and intercepted her as she was momentarily still. He wiped her nose with his bare hand. Then he wiped his fingers on his sock.

Three years ago, if I had witnessed this, I would have vomited, screamed or fainted, or all of the above, at once. But now? I was impressed, in awe and made a mental note to memorise the technique in case of future snot emergencies. WHAT HAVE I BECOME? Yes, yes, a parent – but it’s more than that. There’s an episode of Sex And The City where Miranda gets in a lift with a child, and his indulgent mum tells her pleadingly that he likes to press the button. “Oh yeah?” Miranda shoots back sassily, while pressing the button, “So do I”. And that’s what I have become – someone who tells people her child likes to push the button. Oh, and expects them to care about that as much as she does. All the things I said I wasn’t going to do, be, allow and say before I had a baby, all my militant declarations, have gone out of the window, along with my social life (hence the re-watching of old Sex And The City episodes). I swore my interior design aesthetic would remain unplastic and nonprimary coloured – I’d seen too many of my friends’ living rooms taken over by toys. After a while, grudgingly, I allowed my son a small area, hidden mostly by the sofa. Nowadays, the sofa is mostly hidden by his area, which is enormous, plastic and primary coloured. I vowed that I’d never be one of those mums who suddenly had encyclopaedic knowledge of the Mesozoic era just because their kid was into dinosaurs. If I was to go on Mastermind now, my specialist subject would be Thomas The Tank Engine. I know my footplates from my fenders, what flatbeds and buffers are, and I could take you on a guided tour of The Island of Sodor, blindfolded. While I was pregnant, I went to a place that sold second-hand baby clothes and smugly stocked up, because obviously spending lots of money on outfits for children is ridiculous, especially as they grow out of them so quickly. Needless to say, my son’s wardrobe is now much better than mine – and Prince George’s. While pregnant, I also made emphatic proclamations that the baby was going to fit in with our lives, not the other way round. I’m now a slave to his routine and eagerly planning (after naptime, before dinner, obv) a long car journey to Bedfordshire because London Zoo doesn’t have elephants. When his dream is finally realised and he is at last face to trunk with an elephant, my boy will be bored after 10 seconds and will have forgotten he’s ever seen it after 20. I know this – for certain – in advance. I am still going. My phone storage is taken up by Cbeebies apps, my Sky Plus is dominated by Peppa Pig, Chuggington and The Gruffalo, my kitchen walls are over-adorned with paint and crayon versions of basically the same scribble over and over again. I mean, I suppose I can’t do anything about the latter. The Tate wouldn’t accept them, the philistines.

All I said pre-baby has gone out of the window