Bacteria isn't the only thing on her mind.

'I'm not sure if I want you to fall in love, Mummy,' she announced the other day. 'I'm worried you might get your heart broken.'

Perhaps she'd been struck by that same dating agency ad which makes me glance sideways at my husband and wonder why I had to meet a man in real life, rather than one plucked from a database to match my core values (sleep, wine, reading - and so you see, quite a catch). He'd love me for exactly who I am I think, when the real-life husband asks why I am hiding chocolate in my bedside table.

This is a wonderful dance production directed by Liv Lorent and aimed at an audience of under 5 year olds. Liv has successfully surmounted the problem of how to keep pre-schoolers still for 45 minutes, by making the studio space a free for-all. Children are free to dance or wander round the set as the dancers perform and this works surprisingly well. Of course, parents love seeing the little ones on stage too (especially when they don't have to chase after them).

Many of the children seemed barely aware that they were part of the audience, but all were caught up in the magic of the strange, exciting world beneath the floorboards. I came home with the spring in my step that these innovative productions always give me. Is there any better way to introduce a child to theatre, dance and performance than with such a gently mesmerising production? I was incredibly impressed.

It was all the more disheartening therefore to hear that the RSC have cancelled their Newcastle shows for this season. Newcastle has been the Royal Shakespeare Company's home in the north since 1977. Funding cuts mean the company no longer feels it can afford its annual trip to the provinces for the first time in 35 years.

The only New Year's resolution I have vaguely kept (and there were many) is that I will take my children to the park every day. We don't have a garden, but do have parks at either end of our street, so it's a bit of a no-brainer. Still it inevitably gets to mid-afternoon before we leave the warm cocoon of our flat for a walk in the park.

Seventeen of us ate three meals a day, opened our own bodies' weight in presents and drank almost as much wine. Yet it is my home - the one we left at 5am on Christmas Eve in a scene reminiscent of Home Alone - that is currently groaning under the aftermath of festivity: suitcases half unpacked in the hall, bags of laundry, and a small mountain of glitter (our Dyson conked out when it heard my daughter's plans of sparkly cards for all). Clearly, I have a lot to learn.

Now, don't get me wrong. I will be out there with the rest of Newcastle doing my Christmas shopping tomorrow. After two weeks practically housebound, I can't wait to get back in the real world, at least until next week's bout of forecast snow hits.

But as much as I love dashing through busy crowds, lining up to see Santa at work in Fenwick's window, and lingering by the market stalls with all their delectable smells, the chances of me actually buying anything are practically nil, while the likelihood of finding me ensconced in a coffee shop with the Saturday papers is currently at around 95%.

It brings out the Mummy in me. We were on our way home from buying my daughter a ski jacket when it started to snow last Wednesday. A happy coincidence, which nonetheless gave me the feeling of being proactive rather than reactive in the parenting stakes; of being one of those people who run their lives rather than let their lives run them. Oh, I could get used to that feeling.

Then there are the ample opportunities for laying on the sense of tradition, thick as the snow outside my door. Perhaps it is having spent some of my formative years in America, where the gestures are always grand, but the slightest flurry outside and I am running enormous bubbly baths, serving mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows, singing Christmas carols from morning to night though we are not yet out of November. Cosy, cosy, cosy.

And yesterday, in Gateshead Central Library, my daughter and I pored over the stacks of new books on the children's shelves - each one a new world waiting to be discovered - which have appeared in spite of the ongoing refurbishment. I could have squealed with delight too. I am awaiting that library's reopening like I am awaiting Christmas.

Is it unusual to love libraries like this? It would seem so.

A more likely explanation is that last night I went out, leaving her to wrap Daddy around her little finger. Like a modern-day Goldilocks, she tried out every bed in the house before declaring that the only place she could sleep was on the sofa next to him, watching telly.

For the rest of the day she is overtired, veering wildly between joy and sadness, finding the cruelties of life (why she can't have a biscuit before lunch) difficult to bear.

I meant to wow you with my wit and casual wisdom, dashed off between stirring the porridge and making the beds. You would have been in awe of me taking motherhood in my stride while tossing pithy phrases into the blogosphere: I Don't Know How She Does It, you may well have thought.

Unfortunately, I have not slept. At All.

Of course that is unfair to my daughter, who has more character and charm than that money-grubbing lot put together. Still, I am interested in the way 'the world's toughest job interview' with Sir Alan might compare with what is often called 'the world's toughest job': being a parent.