And so to bed...

Over the last couple of weeks we've been tweaking Olivia's bed-time routine in a desperate attempt to stave off the bouts of temper that she's prone to if we misjudge exactly the right time to put her down to bed. Our thinking about what is the optimum time and the best method to achieve a smooth transition between afternoon and evening changes on an almost daily basis, but our current theory is that from 5:00 pm onwards, boredom has to be kept at bay with a frenzied cycle of entertainment.

Tonight this resulted in one of our most memorable experiences so far, as Olivia had her first extended attack of the giggles! The cause of this outbreak of laughter? That would be the sight of her father dancing like an epileptic caught in the cross-fire of a strobe fight to songs being thrown up by the iPod on shuffle. Olivia's musical tastes seem to be developing nicely as the songs that got the strongest reaction were 'Dare' by Gorillaz and 'Song 2' by Blur, both, keen musicologists out there will recognise as Damon Albarn compositions. Are we to deduce from this that Olivia is leaning towards the effete art-school posturings of Blur, over the council-estate anthems of Oasis? Time will tell.

What we definitely know for now, is that the sight of her Dad trying to dance was the first thing that made Olivia really laugh. I'm guessing that this could prove a recurring theme for a good few years yet.