‘WHAT on earth are you two giggling at?’ Fionnuala was peeking into the living room where Dermot and I were on the sofa eating blue sour sweets and watching SpongeBob SquarePants.

And we weren’t just pretending to laugh at the antics of the Krusty Krab’s cheery cook in the undersea city Bikini Bottom. We were repeating lines like “What in Neptune’s knickers?” and “What in Poseidon’s pantyhose?” at the top of our voices and squealing with laughter.

I reminded myself to cherish this moment with my four-year-old boy: his skinny arms and clear, blue eyes; his velcroed gutties and oversized Antrim shorts; his little white teeth, blue tongue and endless questions; with me scratching his back and fixing his hair, tickling his armpit and shouting at him to stop when he grabbed my earlobe really tight.

Did that all happen, I might think, down the line. All those fleeting memories. Will there be a time when I can’t remember these details? Will it just be: he was a child, and we sat and watched cartoons on the sofa?

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