Children's reading material? Not quite.

I thought I'd share a little conversation I had with Renée in the car this morning.

We'd just delivered Edie to nursery and were on our way to drop Renée at school. On leaving the nursery, Renée had helped herself to a whole handful of leaflets and flyers that had been left just outside the entrance - it's part of a community centre with a cafe and meeting rooms, a hall and various other non-descript offices.

As I was driving along, Renée was sitting behind me, reading through the leaflets.

'Mummy. I'm reading this magazine.'

'Well done darling. Your reading is really coming along now isn't it? I'm so proud of you. What does it say?'

Now, if you can - imagine you're reading from the point of view of a 4-year old. It's letter by letter, phonetically...

'Hmmmm. 'S'...'I'...'Z'...'E'.

'That's 'size' darling. Well read. What else does it say?'

'Hmmmm. 'M'...'A'...'T'...'T'...'E'...'R'...'S'...

'Size matters. Well done honey. Great reading.'

'Mummy, What does it mean, 'size matters'?'

Now I probably should have been concentrating more at this point, but if you have children, you'll understand that every now and then you drift off and you can have a conversation without actually thinking about what you're saying. Either that or I'm just a bit slow. Hmmmm. No need to comment here.

'Well, darling. Size matters. You can be big. You can be small. You can be tall. You can be short. That's what size is.'

'Hmmm. Ok. I'm going to read some more. And I don't need your help this time.'

'Ok, honey. You go for it.'

'AH-NALLE. Mummy, what does AH-NALLE mean?'

'AH-NALLE', I said, repeating back what Renée had read. I said it in my head, thinking that perhaps she had read it wrongly.

'Hmmmm. I'm not sure darling. Can you spell it for me please?'

'A'..'N'...'A'...'L'...

It was at this point that I came to my senses.

'Darling, what exactly is it that you're reading?'

She handed me the magazine and I looked at it. A full-frontal, naked torso. I mean this is Brighton, and I like to think that I'm open-minded, but please. Try not to leave your erotic men's magazines lying around so my four-year-old daughter can pick them up. I do wonder why she hadn't commented on the picture, but all I can say is that she's an avid reader...I'm hoping she hadn't noticed!