Wow, I am very popular at the moment; my little girl has become my little Klingon. It seems I must be the most amazing mother because she simply can’t bear to be parted from me. If I should think for a second about leaving a room with her in it, she makes her disquiet felt by repeating “Mummy, mummy, mummy” in the most sorrowful voice she can conjure up, which becomes gradually distorted by little sobs.

Yesterday when I left for work I am told she stood at the front door, arms outstretched, doing the same routine. Now whilst in many ways I find this sort of adoration quite flattering and it clearly shows who is the better parent (he tried his best bless him) it can also be a teeny weeny mite irritating.

She’s also randomly decided that two of her stuffed pals are her absolute best friends. Having never previously shown any attachment to a cuddly toy, monkey, dolly and Lauren are now virtually inseparable. Not only must the pair of them be in full view at all times, but monkey must be in his dress (I always thought of him as a boy but Lauren clearly disagrees) otherwise we get “Dress, dress” in the whinge voice.

So now, I can completely empathise with all those mums in Trotters who buy four identical Jellycat toys because that particular lion/doggy/bear is their child’s favourite and the risk of losing the toy is simply too great for all concerned. The old, non-parent, rather judgemental me may have thought these mothers somewhat over-anxious or over-indulgent. Not anymore! I am with you! And also, just a warning but I’ve seen it happen lots of times where a mum comes to buy a replacement toy and it’s discontinued. They don’t make them forever you know. Buy now!

If you never need to use a replacement toy, take a top tip from one of our design team at Trotters. She has a daughter who was 18 this year and saved the spare version of, in this case, the Little Princess and presented it to her on her 18th birthday. There were apparently a lot of tears! Ahhhhhh.

Well, having said all this, I am not overly worried about the clinginess. There are other signs that Lauren will grow up to be the independent, strong woman I hope she will be. See below……..needless to say this was a trip with her nanny (you wouldn’t have got me anywhere near that thing. I’d have been crying for my mummy if that was round my neck!!!)

You’ll have all read on the blog about our spring/summer photo shoot. I was really pleased that Lauren was asked to be a model again again. OK, let’s face it, my colleagues who choose the children have to ask her or it might be slightly awkward. How to tell someone their child isn’t attractive enough hmm.

Anyway, I approached the session with some trepidation and rightly so as it turned out. Honestly, it wasn’t good. Mini tantrum before the first set of shots, tantrum when not allowed to eat a brown, (half-eaten by another child) apple, leading to me giving in and letting her eat the apple. Tantrum when I took apple away from her to take next lot of photos etc etc. Bow pulled out of hair about 4,000 times. Tricked her in the end though and here’s a good tip: put two in at once and mess around a lot with the second one and they pull that out and don’t realise the other’s there. Ha!

A minor victory though. Generally I left feeling rather stressed and cross with Lauren. At least the model pickers will be able to excuse her on behavioural grounds next time!

On a positive note, in the moments of calm we had, it was so nice to chat with the other mums there and lovely to see our collection being worn. All the children were so sweet and beautiful and the clothes looked absolutely gorgeous. Also, Lauren loved playing with the pirate and his fluffy parrot, as did the other children…

One of the nice shots of Lauren is on the website and it’s her wearing a duck dress, which as our regular customers know is one of our classic designs. It was so lovely then for me when Lauren’s nanny, Tama, told me her Mum dressed her in Trotters and still has many of the items she wore when she was little. One of them is an original duck dress, shown below. Isn’t it fabulous?! In those days it even came with handmade fimo buttons. Amazing. Our designs have certainly evolved since then, and we don’t do such strong colours now!

If anyone else has kept any Trotters clothes, we’d love to see some photos or old photos of your children wearing them. The older the better! Email them in and we’ll put them up.

Finally, how did everyone else get on with the snow? I was highly enthusiastic. I rushed to Turnham Green store to get Lauren some little Aigle wellies in red, which by the way, she adores and carries around the house shouting “boots”. Snow though, is not such a hit. Nothing could tempt her to enjoy herself in it. Not even throwing a massive snowball at Daddy. Very unpopular, stupid, cold, wet white stuff. Roll on summer.