Snapshots

Snapshot 1: Lucy shows her personality. Or, as we call it, Lucy reaches for the iPhone. By far her favourite playthings are the phones (home phone or anyone's cell phone she can get her hands on) and the remote controls. I confess that I have given her the remote for the radio (which lives in the kitchen) to satisfy her lust
for power without actually enabling her to change the channel or disrupt the DVD. (In fact I hadn't been talking on the phone or even sending a text message: I had the phone in Lucy's general vicinity in order to record for posterity the extent of the couscous-scattering. She's world-class, and comes second--narrowly--after Iain, the champion scatterer.)

Snapshot 2: Big brother and the (soccer or foot-) ball. Thomas was watching Lucy outside; I was about to scold him for picking her up, when I saw what he was doing. He had only carried her as far as the lawn, and only in order to get a ball so that they could play with it. Lucy was thrilled. Suddenly it didn't matter so much that the house was a mess and the washing machine constantly running. This was one of those moments I dreamed about when I daydreamed about what having kids would be like. I dropped what I was doing and went to take photos.

Snapshot 3: Iain, taking a photograph with my iPhone. Photographed by Thomas, who was using my iPad. What more could I possibly say...except that I didn't give permission to either of them, and only discovered the incident as it appeared in my photo stream. So this is what they do when I'm not looking. Could be worse, much worse, couldn't it?