Lucky St. James, my nephew, all of five years old, arrives with my sister for tea. He is sporting a bow tie, braces, a checked shirt, lace-up shoes and a tweed jacket.
'Goodness, you do look smart,' I say.
Very much on his dignity, the infant pulls himself up to his full height and, whipping a sonic screwdriver from his pocket says, 'I am the Doctor'.
'We painted a large cardboard box blue so he could have his own tardis,' adds my sister, following him into the kitchen.
Trefusis Minor went through a prolonged period of dressing like Spiderman, which was quite sweet, but now wears whatever he discovers in his chest of drawers. The Tiniest T was open to being dressed in what I chose for her until about four months ago when, overnight, she developed her own very dubious sense of style. I admitted defeat this weekend and sorted through the clothes she will no longer wear - a beautiful tana lawn Liberty print frock with an eau de nil sash, a hand-smocked dress in raspberry corduroy, a blue velvet pinafore dress from a very bcbg French label - and took them round to a friend for her daughter, The Laughing Baby, named because, when she was a tiny thing, the Infant Trefusii were very taken with her easygoing nature they used to tickle her and pull faces to make her giggle until one day they were so successful she laughed herself sick. At four, she is still immensely good humoured and young enough to love pretty dresses for their own sake.
Anyway, The Tiniest T now seems to have taken her fashion cues from Alexa Chung - her outfit du jour is an orange beanie hat, a blue sequinned vest, navy leggings and a pair of scarlet plaid shorts. The leggings-with-shorts has become her signature look, and the beanie promises to be the defining thing of her Spring/Summer '14. She's six - if she's like this now, I'm a little afraid of what awaits when she turns thirteen.
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