"Daddy, I no need you"

How do you solve a problem like "Mummy, Mummy, I want Mummy"?

Lately, Ben has become just a little bit clingy to Mummy and just a little bit unclingy to Daddy.

I've been ordered out of rooms at bedtime and met with marauding tantrums when Mummy nips out to the shops. I was even told this week, "Daddy, I no need you."

It was inevitable that Ben would spend a lot of time around his Mummy when Ellen gave up work 12 months ago, and perhaps also, kiddies at this age generally prefer the more caring tones and endeavours of their Mummys.

But, still, I didn't expect things to become this one-sided.

Expectations aside, something had to be done about this and Ellen wisely suggested I take Ben out for a walk in the woods this afternoon so we could spend some quality time alone together.

We broke the news to Ben. Yep, straight into a tantrum. Big tantrum.

Face bright red, tears flooding down his face. Not even the peace offer of a banana would calm him down. So I picked him up and bundled him out of the house. He was going on this walk with Daddy whether he like it or not.

I carried him down our street and up to the woods - about a 1 minute walk away - still wriggling and screaming.

I was wondering whether the neighbours thought a child abductor was on the loose as I carried him chest-high up to the steel gate at the neck of the woods and plonked him on the ground.

We ventured tentatively into the woods and I said to him, "Hey, Ben, what can you see?" No reply, but the screaming had reduced to a feeble sob.

I decided to switch from Daddy-mode into kiddy entertainer-mode to try to snap him out of his pernicious mood - ie. OTT voice and ridiculously animated behaviour.

It worked a little, but he still said he wanted to go home to Mummy.

Only when I said, "Ben, you're the boss. Where do you want to walk?" did the sobbing stop.

Face like a blank canvass, he began to peer up at the trees and pay attention to the sounds of the woods, telling Daddy he could hear birdies and asking "What's dat?" when a little grey squirrel shot up a tree as we dared to stand on a twig.

Ben was actually beginning to enjoy himself and there wasn't a skirt in sight.

An old wooden bench came into view and Ben spied it in no time. Yes, he called it a chair, but after a quick grammar correction, I agreed to go and sit on it with him.

We then headed off to gather some twigs, Ben still in charge, and after pelting Daddy's leg a few times with the twigs, Ben decided it was time to go home.

I didn't argue.

I thought it best to cut my losses, abandon the walking route I'd planned and preserve the fun time we'd had in the hope that, next time, Ben would understand that Daddy-Ben time wasn't so terrifying.

We walked home at a leisurely pace - a toddler's pace that it is - and I broke the good news to Mummy.

Daddy-Ben time had been a success. Eventually. And only when I put Ben in charge.

Have I got a little control-freak in the making?