I Have Never Not Ever Caused My Toddler To Become Addicted To TV And I Will Not Feel Guilty

As I write this Tricky is sitting on the floor behind my desk.

He is quiet, he is concentrating, he is sitting nicely and he is doing all these things because a couple of weeks ago he was introduced to the crack cocaine that is Charlie and Lola.

He is starting with I Am NOT Sleepy and I will NOT Go To Bed but will quickly progress to But That is MY Book and eventually end with You Won't LIKE this Present as much as I DO!

It's the dvd, not the book, shamefully enough. It's not even as if we had the cosy literary experience first and then the brightly coloured movable feast. We went straight to the made for tv version and now we're hooked.

Sorry, did I say 'we'?

Because the truth is that we're hooked too, that's C and I, big great grownups that we are.

It could be the pleasant musical background to our computery-work, it could be the amusing way that Tricky leaps up at the appropriate moment to get His Toothbrush or To Check The Bath For Whales but if I dig deeper I think it's because we're all deeply deeply in love with Lola.

Lola, for those who don't know, is Charlie's little sister. She is Small And Very Funny. In this series she is voiced by Maisie Cowell (seventy sorts of gorgeousness in the name alone) and in subsequent series by her sister Clementine (and they all live in a little thatched cottage with yellow roses climbing over the door, no not really, just, hello? the cuteness?).

And Lola screams with laughter and makes up stories and exasperates her kind hearted big brother no end but the world is a better place with her in it. I guess I don't have to dig that deep to realise that I wish we had a Lola too, a real Lola for her big brother Tricky.

And for me.

But in the meantime we have this dvd which we all love and Tricky most of all. He talks about 'big boy' Charlie and 'his sissa Owa' and checks for whales in the bath and now and then he decides to have a little break and post some plastic coins in Miss Piggy or camp out in his cowboy tent but he always comes back to his cushion for more.

And to assuage my guilt at letting him watch the thing each morning, every morning, while I tap on the computer I make him get up in the jaunty music between episodes and dance raucously, and I get up and dance too and we shout and throw our hands in the air and run once around the kitchen table and jump back down on our seats.

I have this toddler Tricky.

He is small and very funny.

And I am grateful.