Ed, David and Nick - spot the daddies.

Now I can't be alone in noticing that all three party leaders are the fathers of very young children. I'm sure somewhere political commentators are speculating on the effect this will have on key policy areas like child benefit, nursery education and maternity care. All fascinating and relevant to us fellow parents, but the question I'd really like to ask is just how much childcare do this lot do?

On the face of it they all make quite a show of being hands-on parents - Cameron dutifully took his paternity leave as did Nick Clegg (his wife Miriam actually went back to work first) but I'd love to be a fly-on-the-wall and witness the day to day childcare negotiations in their families. Does DC formulate his Question Time strategy pacing the house with Florence at 2am? Is Cleggy pureeing carrots after a hard day of coalition negotiations? Has Ed endured the hell that is soft play? They all seem suspiciously puke /poo /puree free......

Commiserations to Mummy Miliband

I've been glued to the Labour leadership contest, not just because I'm a geeky political junky but also due to my new incarnation as mother of two boys. My most pressing parenting dilemma is how to deal with the constant spats M and S have over their toys. Should I intervene on the behalf of the muggee? Let them fight it out? Remove said toy altogether?.... It's tough but imagine how Mummy Miliband must feel. I've (probably) been deluding myself that the toddler stage is the worst. I can just about get my head around teenage emnity but, but, but, what if they're deadly rivals in their 40s? I'll be a little old lady by then and the last thing I'll want is my boy's slugging it out on the national stage. Boys, boys, boys, whatever you do, please don't go into politics.

No, I don't want your pit bull to say hello to my babies.

In the part of London where I live, dogs are part pet, part weapon. Pit bulls are the prevalent breed and their owners range from middle age dad's in vests and slightly scary grannies to, well, the kind of person you'd probably avoid getting into a spat over the odd unscooped poop with. Now, I'm a dog lover but I do not want these muts anywhere near my darling boys. Yesterday when one lunged for S in his pram I made a rather dramatic swerve to get S out of drooling distance. And, for the umpteenth time the owners response was to look at me as if I was a laughably neurotic Mum and mutter, 'he just wants to say hello'. Yes, well I'm sure that's what the owners of those Staffies that savaged a three year old down the road from us thought and I'm not going to take the chance. Pit bulls aren't breed to 'just say hello'. If you want one of those, I'd recommend a labrador.

Feeling fragile? Avoid Facebook at all costs.

For someone with very little opportunity to get out, a spare laptop and the odd fifteen minutes of free time inbetween removing sludge from high chairs and refereeing a spat over Scoop (a yellow digger to the uninitiated), Facebook might seem like the perfect opportunity to catch up on your social life. Trouble is, I'm finding my FB sessions increasingly depressing. It's a bit like those studies that feminists used to do of women's self-esteem after reading glossy magazines - looking at bite-size, cherry-picked snippets of my friends' lives makes me feel like everyone is living a much more glamorous existence than me. This may well be true but it's also a result of the fact that Facebook effectively encourages us all to do our own pr and distill our lives into the most appealing chunks. For example, as a former tv producer I know all about the sheer grind of production, yet when I see posts about my friend's new jobs I nearly always just feel jealous of their fascinating new project, not relieved that it's not me that'll be working 'till midnight five days on the trot. As I almost never post myself, I'd say I'm more of a FB stalker than a proper user but if I did constantly update my status there's almost no way I could avoid looking like a tedious smug mum. It would be all, 'look at the boy's tickling each other, aren't they cute'. Maybe we should dedicate a FB day to tedium - everyone could chronicle the dullest task in their day and thereby make everyone else feel that their life is actually quite exciting in comparison.

Have you gone back to work yet?

No, no, no and mostly when people ask me this I feel like a total slacker / dullard / betrayer of decades of feminist struggle. Am I to blame if the Pankhursts are turning in their graves? Quite a few of my friends who've worked hard for good careers take the line that women should go back to work or we might as well live under the Taliban. The problem is who then looks after the children? Well, in general it's other women, just poorer ones, usually from Eastern Europe or the Philippines, so I'm not sure this is a great feminist triumph. Ultimately, most mums I know (and quite a few dads) would like to work part-time but this hasn't been an option for me as my old career is not what you'd call child-friendly. Now I'm in that tedious situation of trying to work out what I can do that would fit around spending lots of time with my gorgeous boys and would still be mentally stimulating, use my skills, pay filthy amounts of cash etc. etc. Any ideas?!