RUNAWAY THOUGHTS

X runs away a lot at the moment, she's all over the place and it makes me all over her. I'm probably a little over protective since the second most precious thing to me- my job- slipped though my fingers. But she's also a slippery customer.

She's given me several sick moments of jolting fear where I've run around Sainsbury's shouting like a nutter, and then, when I finally find her, everyone looking at me jibbering and slavering over her while she looks askance at me with adolescent rolling eyes.

I've been watching the Dog Whisperer for ideas. His dogs never run away. "Scht!" he says, quietly, from the corner of his mouth, and they look up in awe and trot quietly. "Bless you" said the bloke standing next to us by the veg, when I tried it out on X. Of course I couldn't stop to talk - X was off down Toiletries and Cleaning.

I've taught X to remember her name in case we get seriously separated. But she has four of them and sometimes forgets. That'll teach me to be so verbose. And sometimes she adds a few like Dolly and Upsy Daisy.

It made me think that maybe children's shoes could have a little under sole inside where paranoid mummies can write contact details.Or even that I could get a few cool labels printed to hang on zippers or go inside jackets. Of course another option would be electronic tags or maybe leg irons. Or some painless branding, as on New Zealand lamb. Or tattoos: how about me getting X a tattoo heart  on her chest with my name and address scrolled across it? Maybe Amy Winehouse could get one too- for when she's too out of it to know where she lives. At least it'll ensure that X  is a bit more creative in her rebellion style when she's gets to be a teenager - she'd never want a tattoo if I thought it was cool now.  Hmm- maybe I should develop these surefire business ideas into one of those video presentations for Dragons Den. Come here darling- you won't feel this a bit......