No, it doesn’t involve Viggo. Nor James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser. My most potent fantasy is shared, methinks, by all those females with hangers-on of the genetic variety: the fantasy of being alone. Flavours abound.

When you’re breastfeeding, it’s the fantasy of detachment (not emotional, but literal). Going out for more than two hours at a time. A yoga class. Lunch with a friend. Grocery shopping without the electric shockage of an inside-out baby at the checkout. It’s not profound time, but it’s paradise.

In the thick of it (the two-month birthday), you’re convinced that time like that will NEVER, EVER happen again.

When you’re toddling, it’s the fantasy of free will. You primp, go downtown in that pair of supercool boots you never get to wear, get ten thousand things done, feel fabulously indulgent and faintly hip. Or perhaps not. Perhaps you don’t shower until 3 PM, let the morning drift away in fleecy frumpitude with a pot of tea and a portobello omelette (which you take an hour to eat, just because you can) and a pile of trashy magazines.

Either way, you’re off-duty from your post as Chief Killjoy. Pure decadence. A day-long smile of contentedness.

Speculation due to lack of experience: when you’re preschooling or tweening or anything in the middle or beyond, it’s the fantasy of offspring self-government. Or government administered by someone else. The space both inside and outside your head is yang-free, exempt from intervention (yangs and whines being, from my perspective, potentially more taxing than the physical demands of ten babies put together).

I can imagine, looking ahead: plain and simple peace and quiet. Off-duty from your post as Chief Bad Cop. Bliss.

I sat the other day in the parking lot of the hardware store, alone, eating a sub and a bag of ketchup chips. And smiling, thinking to myself: This is great. This is the BEST LUNCH I have EVER HAD in my WHOLE LIFE. What should I do next? Hmm. Let’s just finish this yumminess, and then we’ll see.

That’s the great thing about living the fantasy. You’re so tickled to be in it, you’re easy to please. On fantasy day, playschool day, nothing can dim my spirits. Cashiers smile and drivers wave and the sun shines and Frenchy’s gives up yet another epic haul. And I get home and still have two hours before the boys come through the door.

Two days per week. Butterflies flip when I see him again, when he squeals MAMA! and explodes through the door, clambers into my arms and sings to me while we roll around on the floor, giggling together. I am refreshed.

That’s more potent than an entire roomful of Viggos.