Reliving your youth at 4 a.m. to a Muppet film is fine. Really.

Picture the scene: you’re fast asleep, imagining yourself in a place only ever attainable through dreams, as a character you’re only ever likely to become through said dreams. It’s 4 a.m. and you’re nowhere near ready to embrace the world at such an ungodly hour because, thanks to the season, you have a few well earned days off work and you’re dedicated to making the most of it. Then the inevitable happens:

“Daddy, I can’t sleep.”

Try as you might, coax as you will, there’s no way you are ever convincing them it’s too early to be awake and bed is the best place to be. He or she is up and the idea of sleeping again is as palatable as finding Santa may have forgotten a gift or three from a list as long as your arm. He or she is awake and you have to deal with it. You’re dreams have to wait.

That’s exactly what happened to me this morning. Ella came into my room at four, eyes only half-open, and told me those exact words. I tried to coax her back to bed, I really did, and sharply realised that it was never going to happen as she flashed me a grin that meant only one thing: one up both up.

My day was going to be full of coffee. A lot of it, in fact. Hours were destined to be drawn into what felt like days.

I’ll be the first to admit, I have no idea what to do with a four year old in the early hours. Partly because my brain has yet to kick in, and partly because everything you find in your blurry eyed state either makes a noise louder than a locomotive passing through your living room, or, God forbid, it takes just a little more cognitive power than is possible at such an hour.

Anyway, fortunately for me my daughter already had an idea of what she wanted to do. A film. Not just any film, mind you, but the Muppet film someone had gotten her for Christmas. I honestly didn’t mind.

How could I? The Muppets have always held a special place in my heart. As a kid, I loved every moment of those felt-and-velcro critters I could get my hands on. And thanks largely to my daughter, I found myself reliving the memories of days gone by that I had thought I had long since forgotten.

But there they were, in all their Hi-def glory. And I loved it.

Miss Piggy, though, I have to say, never did it for me. And why Kermit would ever consider her as a partner of any sort I will never know. I mean, where are her redeeming qualities? Where’s her vulnerability? It can’t be simply that she’s a pig. I can only assume Kermit has masochistic tendencies.

And the best part of it all? The fact that my daughter fell asleep as the credits rolled, and I, desperate to be that six-year-old kid again, got the chance to relive the film over without hearing the question “who’s he?” over and over.