I dress Charlotte in the morning more times than not, but I rarely choose her outfits. There's a very good reason for this.
I'm a man, you see, and don't have an especially strong instinct for what young ladies are/should be wearing these days (no, really). So I leave all of that to Vanessa who tends to lay Charlotte's clothes out for me. But this morning our "daddy proof" system went awry.
Leaving home to head for London at around 7 o'clock this morning, Mrs W mumbled something about Charlotte not needing to wear a vest today as it was too hot. Fair enough. However, when I went upstairs to find her clothes pile, there was a vest in there - so I put it on her, together with a summer dress. And then I gave her breakfast. All was going well.
That was until we were just about to leave the house for nursery. Because when she stood up, I could see Charlotte's vest and nappy. That's how short her dress was.
No self-respecting daddy could be having that, so I returned upstairs to try to find something to cover up her modesty. Unfortunately all I could lay my hands on were heavy trousers which were not really suitable for a hot day. The exception was a pair of big pink pants which I thought might do the job, so I plonked her into them before beginning the buggy push to nursery.
A couple of minutes from our destination, and my phone rang. It was Vanessa returning a panicked voice mail I had left about a quarter of an hour earlier.
I explained that I believed all was now well, despite the fact that Charlotte's summer dress was a bit too short.
"That's not a summer dress," she replied. "That's a top. Did you not see the leggings I laid out for her?"
The answer to that question was an obvious "no."
By the time I reached nursery, I had again convinced myself that everything was OK and that she looked fine after all. That was until she climbed out of her buggy, prompting Jamie to tug on my tee shirt.
"Daddy?" he said, in a confused tone.
"Yes, son?"
"Why is Charlotte not wearing any trousers?"
Sure I'll know better next time.
