As a parent, you hope that your children will like some of the things you like – so it’s nice to see Baby Bigmouth’s love of music, and her fascination with books (for now she’s fascinated by them as objects. Nine months is a bit young for reading, heh). But yesterday she excelled herself: she pointed at the bookcase, climbed on the sofa to reach it, pulled out a Kurt Vonnegut book and sat back down with it. She then pointed at the picture of Vonnegut on the cover, turned to me and made her “what’s that?” face.

“That’s Kurt Vonnegut,” I said. “He was one of daddy’s favourite writers.”

Baby Bigmouth made her “oh!” face.

She looked at the photo for a moment, pulled the book towards her and gave Vonnegut a kiss.

Awww, I thought. She’s going to be a reader!

Baby Bigmouth beamed, and then punched me in the face.

Oh no! She’s going to be a critic!