Why I embrace every moment of my toddler's bizarre behaviour

I have a two-year-old son who won’t go to sleep unless the hoover is humming beside him and he’s clutching a big black stone which he unearthed in our back garden.

You become so used to your children’s foibles and eccentricities that it’s only when you say them out loud you wonder whether they’re actually a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

This was brought home to me last week when I had an electrician in the house.

Struggling to be heard over the sound of the hoover in the other room, he asked if I might turn it off so we could stop lip-reading each other.

“No, I’m sorry, it has to stay on. My two-year-old is sleeping.”

This explanation gave way to a blank look and no doubt a fleeting thought that I was cruel on a number of levels.

I didn’t bother explaining. What was the point? The hoover was staying on because God knows Nathanial needed some shut-eye.

Toddlers have their habits and there’s little you can do about them. I mean, my 12-year-old daughter wore her father’s shoes every day after pre-school for almost a year.

In the same way, we might slip into a pair of pyjamas after a hard day, Rebecca would chill-out in her father’s size 12 brogues from Clarkes until she was wrestled out of them and put to bed.

I’m sure the neighbours thought I could loosen the purse-strings a little when they thought I teamed my daughter’s sailor dress with a knackered pair of men’s running shoes by choice, but so what?

Her older brother had a rather peculiar habit as a toddler as well. The moment he would hear his father pull into the drive, he would throw off all his clothes and run up and down the hall screeching in delight. Try explaining that one to a visiting tradesman.

I embrace these peculiarites because I've noticed that as my children have gotten older they try so desperately to fit in with friends and peers they sometimes seem like a carbon copy of every other child on the street.

The same clothes, the same stance, the same lingo.

While they're still innocent, and thankfully devoid of shame and concern for what other people think, they can clutch that stone and snooze for as long as they want.