And executing the reverent ritual of a Saucepan Dance during the Sunday lunch wash up:
But maybe I take too much for granted. For my children, logic is an elusive concept. Years of training have given them some idea of the urgency of rain prancing and both have learnt to belt ballads over the soap suds with a potato masher mic. But when it comes to the realities of every day life, the blindingly obvious is lost on them.
They have a fastidious fear of germs, but it never occurs to them to flush the lavatory.
Their school calls me on frigid winter days to point out that they've forgotten to bring their coats.
Each week they receive with fresh outrage the news that they have not earned their pocket money, yet each week they ignore the qualifying requirement to tidy their rooms.
They have yet to make the connection between their lack of clean tops and the backlog of dirty laundry growing under their duvets.
Loud are their howls when they don't know that morning's spellings, but it doesn't cross their mind to learn them beforehand.
There is a daily panic when the 11-year-old can't find an essential fashion item, but it never occurs to her to order her wardrobe.
This disconnect exasperates me. It's wearing to have to remind nine-year-olds to put both shoes on before walking to school. But then as once again I discover I've forgotten to pay the bills that I stashed for safekeeping under the guest room bed, I realize that the blindingly obvious is lost on me too.
The weekly ordeal of scraping items glued to the gunk at the bottom of the recycling bin fails to teach me to rinse beer bottles and baked bean tins before chucking them.
Tense journeys through wilderness with the empty tank light on are a frequent result of my dislike of interrupting Belinda Carlisle to fill up beforehand.
The solid back crusts lining the vicarage saucepans have yet to remind me to boil rice in water.
Keen as I am to celebrate the first summer day in a deckchair, it never occurs to me to buy a new lawnmower.
My children blame their tender years for their obtuseness. I attribute middle age to mine. I appeal, therefore, to wiser readers: at what age can we expect Enlightenment?
