I didn't expect you to be there," said editor, who had called me at 9am, obviously hoping that I would not be there.

She was hoping I would not be there so she could shirk her editorial responsibilities and simply leave message telling me she had pulled piece I had been up all night writing.

"Well, here I am," I said, mustering as challenging a tone as possible, daring her to say whatever it was she had hoped to say to an answerphone to me face-to-face (though technically ear-to-ear).

"I thought you would be taking the children to school," she pursued.

"The New Man," has taken them, I said, referring to Thomas with what I hoped she would gather was a large dollop of irony, since new man implies someone keen to help out and do their fair share of household tasks.

Thomas is not any of the above and his only reason for taking children to school was to "have a word with" i.e. chat up attractive new class teacher, who spends most of her mornings having words with various fathers who have suddenly started showing an interest in their children's welfare and taking them to school.

Thomas returned from his first such trip grinning from ear to ear (looking rather foolish in the process) believing attractive teacher to have paid him a compliment.

"How did you get on?" I asked, wanting to know if he had found the missing pencil sharpener (his excuse for taking them to school was to find the pencil sharpener eldest Rugrat was worried about having lost, but he had become so wrapped up in his ulterior motive (seeing if new teacher was really as tall and blonde and gorgeous as everyone said she was) that he had forgotten all about it.

"Fine," he grinned. "Very well actually," he continued, grinning inanely to himself, which I found so intensely irritating that I had to shout at him.

"You could have brought the milk, which you had to step over to get out of the door, in before you left."

I always do and I wasn't going to give him any credit for just taking children and ignoring all the other things that usually get done in the morning rush.

"Anyway, I'm sure your dying to tell someone so it might as well be me. What are you looking so smug about?"

"Oh, nothing," smugged Thomas. But he couldn't help himself.

"It's just that the teacher said I was gorgeous."

As this seemed highly unlikely, I probed him, while making a big song and dance about bringing the milk in, until he finally admitted that what she had actually said was that baby Rugrat, (who he had abandoned outside door of class in buggy while he went in to "look for pencil sharpener" and who gorgeous teacher had had the kindness to keep an eye on) was gorgeous.

"And," said Thomas, ignoring my admonition for having forgotten about his son while busy chasing skirt.

"She said he looked just like me."

Thomas didn't seem to buy my explanation that what she actually meant was that, although the baby resembled Thomas in many ways, the baby was small and sweet and soft and smelt nice - whereas Thomas is large and cumbersome, stubbly (although he had made effort to shave for her) and not always fresh as a daisy.

I repeated the above exchange to Sara, later in the day, who said I should have pointed out to Thomas that baby Rugrat looked just like most of the men outside the classroom that morning.

"Smiling away to themselves and drooling ..."