1. We have a table cloth with a map design on it. Alec jabbed at a landmass with his spoon, 'What dat?'
'It's Greenland.'
'Where there's ice and snow and the whale fishes blow?' He's quoting one of his favourite songs, Greenland Whale Fisheries.* He continues in the same breath, 'The harpoon struck and the line paid out with a single plourish of his tail...'
2. Paracetamol -- the fact that we always have some in the house.
3. Dropping everything except feeding and cuddling Bettany.
* He refused to get out of the bath the other night until I told him I had harpooned him in the bottom. Then he came along very nicely.
