Cold Comfort (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

It is nearly the beginning of December. Everywhere is gearing up for Christmas: lights are being strung between High Street lamp posts, Christmas goods are enticingly displayed in windows, shops have placed twinkly trees in pots outside their doors in precisely the wrong place for a passing double-buggy, and we have all gone down with coughs and colds.

Small brought it back from nursery first. Little G then caught it, and with the loving generosity displayed by all small children towards their adored grandparents, they gave it to us. We are both fuzzy-headed, bleary-eyed, badly-slept, runny-nosed, coughing and generally under the weather.

Meanwhile Little G and Small, perfectly accustomed to living with a wide variety of minor ailments, forge through the day, mopped up at intervals, waiting expectantly for us to provide the next entertainment. All we want to do is curl up under a duvet without being used as a slalom or a trampoline. It doesn't happen.

L-Plate Grandad has cunningly mastered the ability to sit with his eyes closed and zone out for 5 minutes, but I am too worried about Small's ability to run amok to relax. I am like a coiled spring, constantly monitoring him for incipient catastrophes involving stairs, drawers, plugs, doors, small found objects on the carpet, the cat, sharp objects, or cupboards, for which I will be held accountable by You Must Be Mad. I do not remember feeling this heart-lurching sense of responsibility when she was growing up.

In an effort to corral the wagons pre~CBeebies time, I sit them both at the kitchen table, give Small some crayons to eat, and help Little G compose her letter to Father Christmas. I write to her dictation: ''A crown, a wand, a dressing-up box and a police outfit.'' She signs it. I am impressed. Little G is clearly going to rule the world when she grows up.

If she could also find a cure for the common cold, that'd be great too.

Tiara-boom-de-ay (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

Now that she has reached the ripe old age of three and a half,  Little G has become a huge fan of dressing up. Her favourite costume at present is a bright pink and green sparkly fairy dress with pink stick-on wings (think: Flower Fairies on acid) that I found in a charity shop. The moment she gets into the house, she is off to the playroom to change into it.

'Look, grandma, I'm a fairy princess. I'm so pretty,' she announces, twirling in front of the mirror while presenting me with a moral dilemma of epic proportions, because You Must Be Mad has dinned it into me that one must not encourage her to focus on her physical appearance alone. 'Umm ... but you're also a kind fairy princess who helps people, aren't you?' I parrot obediently.

Little G treats this intervention with suitable indifference. 'Of course,' she says, twirling a bit more. 'Look, my dress goes out when I turn round.' There then follows the discussion about whether the silver tiara is better than the pink tiara. It is hard work being three and a half: so many important decisions have to be considered.

Spending a day with a small child dressed as a cast member from Midsummer Night's Dream presents its own very weird moments. I find myself uttering stuff that no sane person would be caught saying, such as: 'Sorry, you'll have to take your wings off, I can't get the seat belt over them.'

Then there is the accessorising. Little G has a box full of what you could call cheap plastic tat, but to her represents riches untold. Much time is spent picking over her loot, selecting what to wear. Look, you might be a shrinking violet, but trailing round Sainsburys in a shocking pink fairy dress, pink wings, tiara AND a selection of Frozen necklaces and bracelets is the way to go. When you are three and a half, it's all about fading into the foreground.