It's official, my wife and I have now become one. Just call us "daddy-mummy". We are joined in holy wedlock, by law - and now, by a hyphen.
In fact, the nickname my little girl Mia has given us, and the way she says it with such passion, need not
even have a hyphen, so make that daddymummy if you like.
And daddy-mummy is inter-changeable with mummy-daddy too. So please yourself. Mia does.
Of course, this endearing and sweet name is all about her maximising the attention she can get from us in as few words as possible.
And I have to give it to her, it works, because it's so adorable.
She still uses the plain old daddy and mummy separately, but the daddy-mummy gets me every time.
"I'm going to work daddy-mummy," she says as she waves and wanders off in one of her role-playing guises.
"Okay, bye."
"Mummy-daddy, can I have some apple."
"What's the magic word?"
"Please, daddy-mummy."
And then there's the more demanding: "Daddy-mummy. DADDY-MUMMY."
Kids, even at two years old, have a way with words that is so simple and heart-warming, and with that they also have the ability to conjure up fantastical possibilities.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to drift off into a kid's world where anything is possible?
I'd love to live in Mia's world.
It's a place where every church steeple - and the Sky Tower - is a fairy castle; where you go shopping and you can fit whole cars and scooters into your purse; and best of all, everything costs 50c. And sometimes it's free, just in case she doesn't feel like handing over the hard earned cash she found down the back of the couch.
It's also a world where she can have a mummy and daddy all in one lovely little Siamese twin-style parcel.
Now that's pretty damn cute.
