Often I wonder what my kids are thinking about. Are they ok? Upset about anything? Worried? Preoccupied with thoughts of growing up in the troubled world in which we live?

This morning I had a lovely insight into my daughter’s mind and what she spends her time thinking about.

She’d just got up and was walking from her bedroom to the loungeroom. She got to the loungeroom door and stopped abruptly.

“Oh no!” she exclaimed. “I totally forgot!”

“Forgot what?” I wondered.

“I was going to come out as a snail!”

Upon which she promptly lay down on her back, tucked her legs into her chest as a shell and used her fingers on her head as antennae. As you do.

“What would make you think to do that?” I asked.

Her reply? “I’ve been planning it in bed at night.”

And you know what? I find it strangely comforting that if I am lying awake at night worrying about meeting a work deadline or the like, chances are my daughter is lying awake in the next room planning which garden slug to come to breakfast as.