If only it was as simple as "tick tock"...

My boyfriend and I are young and hip. We’re even having a party with a smoke machine this weekend, which I think pretty much proves the point without need for further explanation.

However, there has been a conversational shift of late. From the drunken debates on whether Morrissey is a twat or not (not, in case you’re interested) and whether Jordan’s sex tape is ultimate proof that she is dead inside or simply badly shot (dead inside), which I believe have kept the relationship fresh and intellectually challenging, we have taken to discussing kitten shit. All the time.

This is not completely random. We have recently acquired a pair of kittens. But that fact does not detract from the astonishing horror of the incident last night.

Picture the scene: I lay seductively on the bed (admittedly underneath 15-tog duvet so to be fair seductive pose was not as noticeable as it could have been - but it was cold) and he closed the bedroom door. He sat on the bed, he leaned towards me, he kissed my cheek, and then he sat up slowly, as if wanting to take in the woman before him before taking advantage of aforementioned seductive pose. Then he said “Monty just did a really good poo – in the litter tray all by himself.” Queue ten minute compare and contrast discussion on Thomas’ and Monty’s different potty training levels.

My sister asked me whether our acquisition of two cats was a pre-cursor to parenting, or whether I was just settling in for the inevitable crazy-cat-lady section of my life following the inescapable realisation that happy endings are not for the modern woman. Is ok for her to be cynical, she is a single mother.

This got me thinking. Two thoughts in particular have stuck in my mind:

1. Have my boyfriend and I inadvertently become parents and does this mean we will only now talk about the babies kittens to each other and to an ever-decreasing list of friends?
2. Is parenting simply a way to fill a conversational void and avoid sex?

Previously I thought that my neuroses on the issue of parenting were focused; contained neatly into the box marked “tick-tock”. The issue has just become a whole lot more complicated.

You see, if I overcome the “tick-tock” fear (i.e. have children) will I have to live with the awful realisation that our giving in to nature was simply a way to pass the long silent evenings and to save the embarrassment that comes from the four most dreaded words in the bedroom: “I have a headache.”?

Logical conclusion: Counselling (just me).