Appy ever after

That's it. My work is officially done. I've been replaced by an iphone.

As I write this, little a is having her bedtime story read to her not by a doting auntie, fithusband or grandma, but at the touch of a button on the 3-D fairy tale that is nosy crow's Three Little Pigs app.

I haven't even recorded a personalised voiceover, which I believe is the ultra modern act of love from absentee parents.

Is that it, then? have I completely sold out?

We didn't have a television at all when I was growing up, there's a lingering part of me that sees them as the ultimate decadent corruption and I have equally ambivalent feelings towards the computer: lured by the bright entertaining fun of it all but guilty that I don't have to put in much work.

But the pictures in these apps are as charming as any story-book, and in many ways it's a calmer more child-centred experience than me galloping through some hideous pink fairy book with my teeth gritted. Isn't it?

Now all we need is an app that will get out of bed at hideous times of the night to scare off monsters and we'll truly be ready to retire.