One and the same, eyelashes and not a care.

1. Louise tells me that according to child development experts, babies see themselves and their mother as one person for the first two years of their life. I wonder if this explains Alec's sixth sense about whether I'm in the room or not.

2. My mother comments on Alec's eyelashes. "They're nearly curling," she says. I look and remember noting when he was first born -- just eight weeks ago -- that he had almost no eyelashes at all.

3. It's half term. Teenagers in the shopping centre are doing crazy carefree teenage things, like not noticing anyone else around them, eating tottering three-scoop ice-cream cones and queuing for fish pedicures (we have TWO fish pedicure places in Tunbridge Wells these days).