It was the look of undiluted confusion that made my heart sing.

My daughter was still in the first throes of recognition of the grey-haired beardy bloke who looked after her each day. She knew that, somehow, I was responsible for feeding and clothing her, and for changing one of her seemingly endless stream of nappies. She knew my voice from the person who would tell her all about baseball, obscure mid-90s indie music and non-league football, and was probably aware that I was a sort of important figure in her early days, keeping her going like a slightly more mobile Tamogatchi.

On one of our journeys into town – her strapped down in her state-of-the-art, and eye-wateringly expensive buggy – I have to make use of the baby-changing facilities in the shopping centre. It was a mid afternoon, on a school/work day, so the shops were quiet, bracing itself for the late afternoon mayhem associated with the end of the school day. I successfully changed her nappy, mentally high-fiving myself at another trip without the contents of the nappy ending up on me somehow, and after a few moments managed to get her strapped down in her buggy.

I went back outside into the corridor that doubled as the entrance to the bathrooms. Along the wall opposite were a row of mirrors, those “funny” ones that they have in fairgrounds that show the viewer in different, distorted shapes. Clearly, the sight of another baby had drawn my daughter’s attention, and she gurgled and waved an arm in their direction. I wheeled the buggy over, and watched her face crumble in confusion almost instantly.

The man who was just there a moment ago, he is now behind me but I can still see him, her little brain frantically processed. But wait, now he is also standing next to me and laughing. But he is also still on the wall. There are two of him! Hang on, no, the one at the side has gone, just the one behind me! What is going on? Her face went through her whole range of emotions – not many for one that young – but mainly bewilderment. She tried to touch the mirror several times, but was strapped in so just waved her arms wildly at it instead. It’s one of the few moments of sheer amazement that I was there to witness that has been hard-wired into a core memory for me (the look on her face when I shaved my beard had a similar reaction).

She has spent rather a lot of time gazing at herself in the mirror since…